Six Years Without an Appendix
Hey everyone,
Six years ago last week, I woke up for work with an achy stomach. I didn’t think much of it, but throughout the day it became more prevalent. I also realized that I’d lost my appetite.
I started to complain a little bit, and a friend at work (I was a high school teacher at that point) encouraged me to eat more fiber. Thinking it was probably nothing and that my friend was right, I called my mom (a nurse) to ask her opinion.
She encouraged me to go to the ER, just to be safe. I begged off cross country practice and went to the hospital, convinced that the trip would be a waste of time and money. After an exam and some imaging, I was told I had appendicitis. I had laparoscopic surgery that night and went home the next day.
With friends Robo and Kate, plus a nice morphine drip
This was a pretty singular experience for me, and there’s a lot I could write about it. That said, I’ll leave you with two of my biggest takeaways:
Your body will tell you when something’s wrong with it
Prior to this, I’d spent a majority of the past ~3 years struggling with random anxiety about getting sick/developing deadly diseases. Though I was doing better at this point, it was interesting to experience what a real illness felt like—in retrospect, I could tell that the appendicitis pain was not quite like anything I’d felt before. I come back to this moment a lot whenever I feel the hypochondria kicking in.
It’s good to have good friends
That year I was doing a teaching fellowship for recent graduates, and there were five other people going through the program with me. The majority of them, as well as our program director, came to keep me company in the hospital before I went down for surgery, and that gesture has always meant a lot. Shoutout to my friend Robo, who’s a faithful reader of the newsletter. ☺️
I’m grateful for these lessons and for the fact that something that might have killed me 100 years earlier was a relatively small inconvenience.
Pete’s Picks ✅
Newsletter(s): I’ve started reading the newsletter Superorganizers and even paid for the baller Everything premium bundle, of which Superorganizers is a part. In particular, I enjoyed this week’s post The Four Kinds of Side Hustles.
YouTuber/Video: I’ve become a huge fan of Johnny Harris. You may have seen his videos around the interwebs, as he used to make the Borders series for Vox. He also has a YouTube channel where he makes videos that blend history, geography and international relations. If you don’t think that sounds awesome, check out the video he released this week about how the U.S. stole the Middle East. I thought about explaining but I’ll just let Johnny do that.
This Week’s Blog Post 📝
Hatching Twitter (Book Summary)
A few of my thoughts, takeaways, and criticisms of Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton
This Week’s Videos 📹
How to Learn CSS in 2020
How I Write My Substack Newsletter
Cheers,
Peter