Back from Scotland, Minus One Appendix

Well, I’m back. Feeling more like Bilbo Baggins at the end of the Hobbit than I’d like, especially since I didn’t come home with a chest full of dragon loot. No, if you weren’t following along with the saga on Facebook, I didn’t really come home with anything. Instead, I left my appendix in Glasgow. I’m not generally the sort of person who goes around being quite that forgetful, so maybe I should bring you up to speed.

The goal of this Scottish trip was straightforward. I was going to present at Worldcon, and while I was at it, I was going to get in a fun family tour around the country. I’ve done multiple trips to Europe. There was no reason this one should have been any different, and yet it was.

Right off the bat.

If you know me much, you’ll know I’m generally an over planner. I like to know exactly what I’m going to do, and when. This is double true on vacations. I make a packing list well in advance, I get to the airport three hours early, and I do everything I can to make sure everything goes according to schedule. But this time around, things were different right from the beginning. Three days before we were supposed to go, I came down with a stomach ache. The reason seemed obvious: I had eaten an entire large Domino’s pizza, all at once. (Why would I do something like that? Because I was hungry, and I’m a bit of an idiot.) I felt poorly right after I’d done it, and that poor feeling didn’t really go away. It got worse.

I kept assuming I’d just overeaten and really given myself a bad case of indigestion. I dragged myself through the next few days, doing my best to make sure no one knew how bad I was feeling. I didn’t pack. Didn’t get ready. I just didn’t feel well. Sunday (the day we were to leave), I was a wreck. My stomach was still really hurting, and I didn’t seem to be thinking well. Again, there was a reason for this: I hate flying, and I’m usually a bundle of nerves before I go on a plane. So in my head, this was just a combo of too much pizza and too many nerves. I finally managed to force myself to pack, and we got underway later than I’d have liked.

Late enough that we missed the bus I’d planned on taking. (I don’t miss buses.) But we got on one that should have gotten us to the airport 15 minutes later. That would still leave us with two and a half hours at the airport.

Except there was terrible traffic. Two hours of traffic. We got to the airport with a half hour to go. My stomach was still killing. We rushed through security, and I ran all the way to the gate (which was naturally at the very far end of the terminal). They opened the doors for me, having just begun to shut them. But Denisa and the girls hadn’t caught up yet, and by the time they did, Delta had given up and just shut the doors. That was brutal.

I wanted to throw in the towel. I felt awful, but I also didn’t want to let the family down like that. So after a brief conference with the fam, I bought new tickets that would get us to Glasgow just two hours later. My stomach didn’t feel any better, but whatever. We flew from Boston to Dublin to Glasgow, and I was just icky the whole time. It would be okay, I thought. I’d get to the hotel, sleep some, and everything would be better.

Well, we got to the hotel, and I waited in the lobby until I could check in. And I did, indeed, sleep some. 45 minutes until I woke up in even more pain. It was at this point that Denisa and Daniela found me. Daniela opined that I should probably go to the hospital, but I was having none of it. This was bad pizza and bad nerves. Nothing more. After some arguing, she upped the ante and pretty much told me I was going to the hospital. I caved. Denisa got a taxi, and off we went to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

After two hours of waiting (feeling worse and worse), the doctors were pretty sure it was just a bad stomach ache. They were going to release me with some pain killers and all would be right with the world. They just wanted to run it by one of their specialists before giving me the green light. But when the specialist saw my blood tests, they said I should probably stay for observation. That was after four hours at the hospital. 8pm, they told me they were going to admit me. 2am, they said they actually thought I needed a CT scan ASAP, so they rushed me in for one. 5am, they told me it was definitely appendicitis, and it was bad enough that I’d need surgery right away. That happened an hour later.

From what I heard after the fact, things were pretty bad in my insides. Bad enough that the infection was all over the place. Bad enough that they needed to keep me for probably one more night. Then another. Then another. I was eventually let out of the hospital after five days of being there. (Went in Monday, came out Friday.) The Scottish doctors and nurses were all very kind (though the food . . . yikes), but it was a difficult stretch of time for me. Denisa and the girls were in limbo, visiting me some, but always being told I was about to be released. I insisted they go out and have a good time, but it was not great for me to be in that hospital by myself for so long. (Well, not totally by myself. I was in a room with three octogenarians who were very kind, as well. But I was most definitely Not Alone.)

I figured I’d get let out of the hospital, and I’d still be able to salvage some of the vacation. Yes, I’d have missed the Isle of Skye and Inverness, but there was still Worldcon, Edinburgh, and Sterling. This could all still work. Maybe it could have, except I was still very much not recovered. I was low on energy, and I’d just undergone surgery. I ended up canceling Worldcon, and I picked one or two things each day that I could do, spending the rest of every day in bed. I did have some fun experiences that I’ll try to blog about in the next few days, but by and large, this was easily the worst “vacation” I’ve ever had.

Now that I’m home (got in last night), I’m discovering just how weak and not great I still am. That day of travel totally wiped me out. I do think I’m improving and getting stronger, but it’s going to take some time.

The moral of the story, should you be looking for one, is “Don’t get on an airplane if you feel rotten.” The trick, of course, is that at no point in time did I think I was making a bad decision. There was a reason my stomach felt awful, and that reason was Domino’s pizza. (Sorry, Domino’s.) In reality, I think I was not thinking well at all from Friday morning on. That makes sense, as I was suffering from appendicitis and a growing infection inside me. When your brain isn’t braining, it’s hard to make good choices.

In any case, it’s done now. I’m home, and I’m very grateful to be here. Yes, it cost money. (No idea how much yet. My insurance will fill me in on the details eventually.) But things could have gone worse, believe it or not. People die from appendicitis. Flying with it isn’t something doctors recommend (go figure). I’ve gone over some of the things that might have happened, and I’m very glad they didn’t. Do I wish I’d just stayed home? Definitely. But I got through it, and I’m not dead, so I’ll take that as a win.

However, note that when “At least I didn’t die” becomes the measuring stick for your European vacation, you might want to consider the fact that it wasn’t a very good vacation . . .

Thanks to all of you and your kind words while I was in the hospital and away. They were all much appreciated.