A January Surprise

A January Surprise I had always wondered what it was like to have surgery. My questions were answered last January! It was a cold, snowy January morning. I woke up with stomach pains. My parents thought I had the flu, or it was just something I ate. I finally convinced them that I was really sick. My dad took me to the emergency room at 3:00 A.M. At the emergency room, the doctors and nurses took tests and gave me shots. My stomach hurt so much that I didn’t mind the shots. I heard a nurse tell my dad that she thought it was my appendix. They took me upstairs on a stretcher. When I got upstairs, they gave me a yellow hospital gown that didn’t have a back. It was embarrassing. The doctor came to my room. He examined me and said he thought it was my appendix and that it would have to come out. Another doctor came to my room and told me they were going to operate at 9:00. They were afraid my appendix would burst. I don’t remember much after that. They took me up to the surgery floor. They put a mask on me and I fell asleep. I woke up in the recovery room with a new mask on. I kept trying to take it off. A nurse yelled at me a couple of times. The worst thing about surgery was that I was so thirsty. I was mad and yelling at everybody. A nurse finally gave me some ice chips to suck on. I fell asleep and didn’t see any visitors that day. The best part about surgery was that all my friends gave me gifts. I got games, puzzles, magazines, and balloons. The balloons were the best because they made my sister jealous. I spent three days in the hospital. After three days, I was ready to go home because of the whiny little three-year-old in the next bed who just had his tonsils out. Getting my appendix out was one of the strangest times of my life. Now that I know what surgery is like, I don’t think I want to go through it again.