I was awakened at the god-forsaken hour of 5.30am to be scuttled into the ambulance that was to take me to the air-strip so I could be air-flighted to Nairobi before my appendix tried to pull an 'over filled balloon' and blow this joint. Due to the fog the plane couldn't land on the original dirt and gravel air-strip so they had to drive me to the next town over to be launched into a whirl-wind of a morning.
A scenic (and sedated, thank you morphine!) 35 mins later I was being rushed into a check-up room of the E.R. at Nairobi hospital to be pricked and prodded to be absolutely 100% certain that the darn little organ was indeed the culprit that needed to go. So off to a freezing cold ultra-sound where three necessary, and four random people get to examine my internal infrastructure, where it was determined my two-sizes too big appendix was too risky, especially with fluids beginning to build up around it, to remain inside me and my surgery was scheduled for two hours later.
So there I was with two hours. Two hours to contemplate the fact that I was about to have surgery for the first time. Surgery, in a developing country, with nobody I know to be with me, and having general anesthesia, which can kill people even in America.
Suddenly, they’re prepping me for surgery, pushing me down a hallway towards the theatre that looks like the hallway to a basement. For some reason it is deemed necessary to remove my earring and bracelets even though the surgery is on my stomach… They stretch me out, Jesus style, onto the surgery table and warn me that I won’t feel a thing in about 2 minutes. That is when I finally loose it. This is for real…
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