Sometimes it takes an inflamed appendix to snap a person out of a writer's slump.
When I first entered law school, I assured my friends and family I would never stop writing, because I loved it so much.
Little did I know law school would be like an extended boot camp, except that with boot camp you usually come out with a terrific body, whereas law school usually gives you a stress pooch.
Anyway, law school turned out to be much more demanding than I thought. As I embarked on my second year, this column fell to the wayside. I had cases to brief, rules to learn, and memos to write. I couldn't indulge in a column like this!
With just a month of school left before graduation, I knew I would return to writing the column. Eventually. When I had more time.
Enter my inflamed appendix.
On March 24, I made my lunch for the day, using one of three bags of salad from our fridge. The bag was stamped with the earliest date – I needed to eat the older bag first – and I hurriedly shoved the salad in a container. Later that day, I felt a twinge in the area above my bellybutton.
The next day I woke up and still felt an occasional twinge around my bellybutton.
Damn salad, I thought.
I took the bag out of the fridge and read through the date thoroughly. Oh man – it said USE BY MARCH 15, not SELL BY.
For me, the "use by" stamp means a lot more than a "sell by." "Sell by" indicates about a week more in Gen-X Land. "Use by" means trash after said date.
Ah-hah! I had food poisoning, I decided. Going through the day, I felt queasy from time to time and told everyone it was just bad salad. My friend, Bex, recommended I drink some water. I assured her I would in the interest of flushing it out.
But by Wednesday, that bad salad had yet to flush itself out. After diagnosing myself with some handy dandy help from online medical sites, I knew it was the beginning of ulcers. I had been stressed lately. It had to be ulcers!
My husband, Derek, suspected, however, it may be something else. "You should make an appointment with the doctor," he suggested.
That was when I first thought maybe it was more serious than I thought. Derek never suggests calling the doctor. He usually says to wait for a few days... On second thought, by Wednesday, it had been a few days.
So I made an appointment for 7 p.m. at urgent care. A few hours before the appointment Derek and I sat at Panda Inn, a popular Chinese restaurant, enjoying candied walnut shrimp. We laughed about how I needed to slow down a little so that I could ease the stress that may be causing my ulcers.
During the appointment, I chattered on to the doctor, telling her about how it was either a bad salad or ulcers. After all, I had a similar familiarity as she did with health situations, thanks to my online doctors.
She quickly ruled out bad salad and told me she did not believe I had ulcers. She then asked to do a pelvic exam.
A wha-? Why would I ever need that? As the doctor pressed spots around my abdomen, I thought about all the things I could be doing instead: reading for class, writing memos, researching cases.
And then she found it. When the doctor pressed a certain area on my right side, I experienced what is called "rebound tenderness," which is when a patient feels more tenderness with the release of pressure than when it is applied.
"Ah," she said.
Ah? What did that mean?
"We're going to need to test for appendicitis," she said.
Appendi-wha? No, no, no. I didn't have appendicitis! Ha ha! How funny! What a funny doctor!
I have appendi-wha?!
And yet, there I was, a few hours later in the emergency department, waiting for a CAT scan to tell me whether I had appendicitis. A nurse brought out four bottles of barium, which looks like and tastes like soy milk, for me to drink. I tanked the bottles quickly to get the scan over with. I was anxious for the doctors to realize it was really all just a bad salad.
That realization never came. Instead, I was prepped for laparoscopic surgery within a few hours and under anesthesia by noon on Thursday.
As I woke from surgery, I called for Derek beneath my oxygen mask. Turned out the noise I thought was Derek snoring next to me was an older man named Mr. Thompson.
Funny, one of my most vivid memories when I was going under was several nurses standing over me, telling I would be able to return to my rich family in no time, because my family owned Suzuki, the auto company.
The nurse removed the mask and began to ask me questions. "Are you nauseous?" "Are you hurting?"
Mr. Thompson answered several of my questions. "Not you, Mr. Thompson!" the nurse scolded. "You just concentrate on breathing! I'm asking Genevieve Suzuki these questions!"
"Arrrgh!" groused Mr. Thompson.
Poor Mr. Thompson! Didn't he know he had the heir to the Suzuki throne next to him?
Six hours after my operation, I was on my way home. I could not believe all that had happened in just 24 hours.
We are truly fortunate to live in 2008, a time of laparoscopic surgery and quick recoveries.
I thought about how much I wanted to do in the coming days, weeks, months. There never seemed to be enough time. And yet after the appendectomy, I had more time, even though there was still the same amount of hours in the day as there had always been.
Before I went in to surgery, I wrote up a quick power of attorney, because no matter what the odds, a person should always be ready. It got me thinking of what was really important in life. My family, good friends and my health were all things I took for granted. Add to that list this column.
During that ride home, I also realized how many funny things happen daily that need to be celebrated and appreciated. Bad salad, silly nurses and Mr. Thompson are all funny nuances that go to creating the perfect picture.
As I said before, sometimes all it takes is an inflamed appendix to break a person out of a writer's slump.
