Losing Your Appendix in Seattle - By Gary Dove (England)

I have hit one of the travelers worst nightmares. Before you leave
you are constantly being told by responsible people what to do if
you lose anything or if you get sick, but being young and therefore
invincible you don’t tend to listen because lets face it, “it’ll
never happen to a guy like me”.

Well on Friday 29th June at 5:30 in the morning it did happen to me.
My alarm clock for the morning was an invisible knife being driven into
my lower abdomen. I woke up rolling around in agony not knowing what
was going on. Throughout the morning I was going back and fourth
between my bed and the toilet. The evil doctor inside of me
diagnosed this pain as gas so I crawled to the nearest pharmacy and
bought some gas tablets. I should of cut out the middle man and
threw them straight down the toilet because two minutes later that’s
where they were.

After vomiting for the next couple of hours it was time to take
desperate measures and go to the hospital which leaves an important
question - where is the hospital?
The first step was the hostel reception.
“Sorry, I’m new here and don’t know the area too well. Try the
pharmacy”
Not too helpful but it’s a start
“Where can I find the doctor?”
“Sorry we don’t have a doctor here”
“I didn’t ask that, just tell me where the hospital is”
“You can take the number 4 up to Capitol Hill, there should be one
around there”

Oh thanks, there SHOULD be one round there. No time for should,
I need definates. And you are also expecting me to get a bus when I
feel like I’m going to be sick any second now.
When I say I’m going to be sick any second I wasn’t lying, only this
time I didn’t have the luxury of a toilet so I had to run to the
nearest alley, which just so happened to be the smelliest, and do my
business there.
It is quite weird that I encountered my first bit of
sympathy of the day. The nicety of this check up was quickly
thwarted when the next question was “Do you want to buy some
cocaine?”.
You know what mate, it never really crossed my mind whilst I was
depositing the inside of my stomach onto the floor here, but now you
mention it, I could do with a couple of lines. You never know, it
might make me feel better.

I was cold, in agony, clueless of what to do and the worst feeling of them all - lonely. I know my needs were probably medicinal at the time but I would of paid decent money for
a hug from someone I knew.
Luckily I had money on me so in the end I flagged down a taxi and
told him to take me to a hospital.
“Which one?”
“Nearest!”
“What part?”
“I really don’t care, the main part”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“NO - JUST F_CKING GET ME TO THE F_CKING HOSPITAL BEFORE I PAINT
YOUR INTERIOR WITH MY VOMIT!!!”
“Where you from, Australia?”
You have got to be kidding me. I’m in the back of your taxi in
obvious pain and he wants to start small talk about accents. Luckily
for me the hospital wasn’t to far so I didn’t have to put up with
too much of his bullshit although he did leave me with one last
stupid comment - “Have a nice day”.

When I got to reception the bureaucracy of American hospitals became
apparent straight away and it came to my realisation that it was not
going to be straight forward. One form was asking me for insurance
numbers etc so I had to go through the process of explaining that I
have travel insurance but not health insurance. All of this whilst
I’m in too much agony to talk.
“So what are you doing in Seattle are you visiting?”
This is really taking the piss. I seriously do not want to exchange
pleasentries.

After one more visit to the toilet to throw up I was finally greeted
by a doctor who put me in a wheelchair and started asking me
questions that I actually wanted to answer. After finding out that I
was not allergic to anything I heard the words that anyone would
like to hear after spending the last five hours in pain.
“I’m going to give you morphine for the pain and a sedative so that
you can go to sleep”
I’m happy to say that the morphine had the immediate effect as did
the sedative. I then go through numerous tests including a CT scan
which was fun because it made you feel like you were wetting
yourself when you weren’t. (I know, my idea of fun can be strange
sometimes)

Then came the results and it was not what I was expecting from what
I thought was a bad belly ache. Apparently I had appendicitis and
they were going to have to operate and keep me in for at least one
night. For someone who has never had an operation in his life this
was bad news because I couldn’t have any visitors unless someone was
willing to travel a few thousand miles that day.
When I woke up I realised that I was in a different part of the
hospital and had acquired three scars down my belly. I had also been
shaven downstairs - the sadistic bastards. Is that how they get
their kicks is it?

The next couple of days I spent in a private room. Every now and then a nurse would come
in to check up on me and have a look at how my scars were doing. Each time I had to talk
about where I came from and how my travels were going which can get
boring twenty times in one day.

When I finally got back to the hostel on Sunday afternoon I was
surprised to hear that people did actually notice that I was missing
over the weekend. When I told them what happened I got some much
needed sympathy. People were more willing to help and offer advice
of what to do which I am thankful for. I’m also thankful that the
main people looking after me were English as they were a lot more
sympathetic to my traveling needs being abroad.

What I’m fearing now is the international bureaucracy that is going to
follow. Hopefully they are just going to send the bill home and I
won’t have to worry about it until I get home because I really can’t
be bothered at the moment and the time difference makes it hard to
phone insurance companies.

So I can now tick that one off the list: Lost appendix while traveling!

(After Gary’s harrowing ordeal trying to find a hospital the Green Tortoise now has a list of doctors and hospitals in the nearby vacinity).

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