9 random observations from a hospital bed on Christmas day

On Christmas Eve, I had an appendix. On Christmas Day I did not.

Although the timing sounds poor, it couldn’t have worked out better. My appendix chose to go nuclear on the one night I was staying with my parents, a ten minute cab ride from a relatively empty Mt. Sinai ER.

It was my first surgery, and probably a good one to start out with — laparoscopic appendectomy is about as routine as it gets, and the recovery has been fairly easy so far. Here are my observations so far:

My dignity — gone with the wind. I’m not sure where my hospital gown ends and the loose mass of bedsheets begins, so more people have seen more of my body in the last 48 hours than ever before. I’m over it.
The 3 new holes in my stomach — tiny, manageably painful, no dressing required; I have no idea how they got the appendix out, though.
Drugs — Just awesome. I understand why Ewan McGregor goes down the toilet for this stuff in “Trainspotting,” although it’s a little scary how one tiny vial of hydromorphone basically shuts down your body.
Jokes about getting another pair of socks for Christmas — getting lots of laughs, although they might just feel sorry for me.
A tall glass of water — I’ve not been allowed to drink for the last 36 hours, with all my fluids coming from a saline drip. What I am allowed to do is swab my lips with a wet sponge. It is exactly as satisfying as it sounds. I cannot wait to drink water again.
Mistakes — a bit more common than I’d like. They mistyped my DOB, which lead to innumerable delays as they tried to figure out how to reprint it. In the ER a doctor ordered antibiotics for me several times, but the requests didn’t seem to go anywhere until my fever hit 107 and I turned beet-red, at which point she outright forced my nurse to put them in. Last night, a nurse requested some IV Benadryl to put me to sleep; the doctor on call mistakenly ordered it for the following night and then went to sleep. That being said, neither of these situations were life-threatening, which deprioritizes their importance.
Re-watching the first couple seasons of “Scrubs” to kill time—a really good idea. Although “Scrubs” is good anywhere.
Learnings from yoga— This was actually a pleasant surprise: the same “focus on the breath” technique that gets one through a minute of chair pose, also helped manage real pain. Pre-surgery I was hurting pretty bad and couldn’t get painkillers, so breathing techniques helped a lot.
Having my appendectomy in 2015, as opposed to 1815 — something for which I am utterly grateful.