Oy vey!

It has admittedly been a while since my last update. I can explain. Well, not really, but i suppose the very act of explaining sort of provides an update in and of itself. Eh?

My last post concerned my lack of motivation. I can assure you that this trend continued steadily up until the very last moments of my time at Smith College. Needless to say, I have graduated. Let me rewind a little bit. We'll start with my last days at school.

To begin, I truly miss my friends and the campus already. I know all I did was bitch and complain about it, but what else do you do when you love something? Smith College is like an annoying sibling: you can complain, and you get aggravated, but in the end, you love it, snotty nose and all.

The last two weeks of school, I was inundated with work. My finals included two actual, physical tests and 52 pages of papers. 25 pages of those papers were for my Evelyn Waugh seminar with Doug Patey. I had a long research paper for my environmental class as well as a Shakespeare paper and another research paper for my Congressional/legislative process class.

A couple of weeks before the last day of finals, I realized that I needed to organize my time fairly well. I vowed to write five pages a day and, surprisingly, stuck with decent accuracy to this goal. I typed away about bees for my research paper on pollinator bills before congress (try writing fifteen pages on that...I somehow did). I theorized my way through various manifestations of societal "clothing" in King Lear. I wrote about...something...for my environmental ethics class.

My friends were entirely supportive of me during this time. Every night they'd ask, "did you finish your five pages?" and when I'd reply in the affirmative, they'd cheer with what looked like real excitement. I had a makeshift thermometer on my door, separated into 5-page intervals. People left me encouraging notes, knowing that I'd soon graduate. This all went very, very well, until the night of Wednesday the 18th.

I was in Neilson library, alternately typing about modernist architecture and watching youtube videos of Eureka's Castle (i'd post said video but it has been taken down due to copyright infringement...lame). I had, by that time (about 9 pm), consumed about five cups of coffee and a lot of carbs. My stomach started to hurt. No big deal. I typed away though my insides seemed to be trying to escape.

I got back to Park Annex (my house) and explained my ongoing gastrointestinal discomfort to my friends. One girl gave me some Tums and sent me on my way. I decided not to finish my five pages for the night. In bed, I put a heating pad on my stomach; it was burning more and more every minute.

After sitting up all night, writhing (literally) in pain, I decided I had a stomach bug. I dragged myself out of bed and proceeded to chip away at my seminar paper. After a few hours, I had only seven pages left to write: I was close to my goal of 52 pages. I had taken all of my actual finals a few days before. The only thing standing between me and my diploma was seven pages.

Ali convinced me to move home; a big snowstorm was expected the next day. She helped me pack up what was left of my belongings. I had been moving things back to my family's house intermittently; all I had left at school were some hangers, my computer, bedding, and a toothbrush. My stomach felt like it was being stabbed with a million knives. I carried my stuff to Ali's car and tried to stay awake.

At home, I was feeling worse. I managed to somehow type another four pages of my paper. I hadn't been physically sick, I didn't have a fever, and I wasn't even nauseous. I went to bed early-- at about eight p.m.-- and vowed to finish my last three pages the following morning. I had until 4 p.m. on Friday to do so; it would be no big deal.

At about 3 a.m. that night, however, I woke up feeling as though my stomach had exploded. I am so glad that I was at my family's house because I could hardly move. I laid in bed and cried hysterically. I could not get comfortable. I finally fell back asleep after my mother gave me a pill (I'm still not sure what the pill was).

The next morning I woke up and lied to my mother that I felt better. It was indeed a lie because the pain had localized in my lower right abdominal quadrant. It felt, again, like I had been stabbed. I walked with a limp but kept telling my mother I was fine. I typed one more page before my mother dragged me away from my computer and brought me to the hospital.

I was admitted at 11 am and sat in the Emergency Room alone while my mother went home to get my computer so I could finish working on the paper while waiting. Let me take this opportunity to say that I hate Cooley Dickinson Hospital. The woman who gave me the iv could NOT find a vein and kept jamming the needle into my arm. I hadn't eaten anything in a few days at this point (I had not showered either, but that is another story). I looked down while she was jabbing the needle into my vein and saw it moving under my skin. Ali and my mother were there with me; I yelled to them that I was going to puke. Sure enough, I puked--luckily, into some weird bag that Ali had procured out of somewhere-- and the woman FINALLY got the iv needle into my arm. While all of this was happening, a phlebotomist was seemingly subjecting me to the archaic practice of bloodletting. The nurse putting the iv in hooked me up to a saline drip and then attempted to give me morphine. She first, however, dropped the glass jar of morphine on the floor and chuckled, stating happily that she was clumsy that day. She finally got the morphine into my system; things were good. For a little while.

Some dumbass doctor ordered a CT scan (not sure why; they KNEW it was my appendix). I had to drink all that nasty orange stuff and be wheeled to the big weird machine (I'm clearly down with medical jargon). While I was on my way to the big weird machine, the person pushing my wheelchair (I really couldn't walk) rammed me into a machine in the hallway and knocked it over and then proceeded to open a door with my legs. Great.

After about, oh, three more hours, my CT results came back. Surprise surprise: it was my appendix. Oh, and it had ruptured while I was sitting around waiting, being rammed into things and jabbed with needles. They promised that I'd be operated on by seven p.m. I was still pissed that I hadn't finished my Doug Patey paper and asked if I could work on it. I tried; it wasn't a good idea to type while on morphine.

I wasn't nervous about the operation until they wheeled me up (in my bed, still ramming me accidentally into walls and things) to the recovery area. Then I got nervous. My imbecile of a father tried to comfort me, telling me that it wouldn't be like years ago when he had his wisdom teeth out: "I could hear everything they were doing!". Finally, at 10:30 p.m. (12 hours after I had first been admitted), my anesthesiologist gave me something which she referred to as "champagne". I remember, vaguely, being wheeled into the operating room, saying bye to my parents, still sobbing though I had been heavily sedated. My heart monitor beeped quickly. I remember a woman patting my head and telling me that I'd be fine. They put a shower cap type thing on me. I remember them stating that I'd "be asleep in no time". I remember shivering and crying, but I don't remember closing my eyes.

Things were hazy when I woke up. I groaned to make sure my vocal chords worked because my throat was so sore-- I had been given an oxygen tube during the surgery. I couldn't see clearly, so I squinted and closed one eye to read the clock in front of me. It was almost midnight. My stomach was in searing pain. I had an oxygen mask on my face and could hardly remember where I was. I was back in the recovery room, post-operation. They hadn't given me any painkillers yet because they wanted to make sure I woke up completely.

I kept asking for my mom, for Aaron, for painkillers, for anything. My throat hurt very badly but I still managed to groan and bitch at the nurses. I was put on oxygen because I had tachycardia (a rapid heartbeat). I was eventually given morphine and brought up to the new wing of the hospital. I remember breathing very slowly, and a nurse kept reminding me to breathe. I wasn't really coherent so it was easy to forget about breathing...

I slept pretty well through the night with a constantly supply of morphine and antibiotics being injected into my system. I was smelling pretty ripe because I hadn't showered in days. Aaron and Ali came to visit; my room was really nice and I had a beautiful picture window to watch the big snowstorm through. I watched horrible holiday movies, catching only segments of them at a time because I was drifting in and out of sleep. It took me about three full viewings of The Wizard of Oz to piece various segments together; I couldn't keep my eyes open.

The best part about recovery was that I looked pregnant. My surgery was laproscopic, so they had inflated my abdomen with carbon dioxide. I was even fatter than usual. Great.

I finally made it home on what I think was Sunday or Monday. I can't remember. Regardless, I finished Doug Patey's paper while on morphine and attached it to an email, sent it along, and collapsed on my family's couch with a semi-contented whimper. So much for going out with a bang like I had always pictured.

I passed all of my classes and did fairly well. It wasn't my best semester ever grade-wise, but that's ok. The semester had been plagued with apathy (see previous post) and various bad occurrences (getting my identity stolen, for one). The important thing is that I managed, somehow, to graduate.

Wow, this post went on for a lot longer than I had expected. Anyway, that is the story of how I parted ways with my appendix. People really dig it when I tell it at job interviews and such.

On another note, I was urged to update my blog by a few people; I didn't realize that people actually read this. I mainly keep this blog for personal reasons. It makes me feel like I have a theoretical place where my thoughts are organized. I'll be updating more frequently now (after writing 52 pages in two weeks, I didn't want to even be literate anymore, let alone type another word), so stay tuned.

Quite a bit has happened to me since I left the hospital, none of it as interesting as the appendix story. I will, however, set it down soon enough. Happy February, y'all.