At the end of the school year in seventh grade I started to have serious stomach pain. It was only on occasion, and never for very long. Over the course of the summer though it became worse and worse until it got to the point where I had to go to the emergency room sometimes twice a week. I even had to go to the ER during our family vacation to New York City.
Kinda ruined the trip.
It really seemed like there was nothing anyone could do. The doctors tested everything they could think of, but still they had no fracking clue what was wrong with me. I was on all kinds of meds but nothing was helping. Eventually though one of my doctors decided to send me to Children's Hospital in Columbus to having more testing done.
The first theory they had was that I might only have one kidney. So to check this theory they sent me to have an ultra sound. What they discovered from this ultra sound was that, while I do indeed have two kidneys, I also had a benign cystic ovarian tumor called a teratoma that was approximately the size of a softball. I was immediately scheduled for surgery that Friday. My doctor explained that because of it's size, the longer I waited to have surgery the higher the risk got of it rupturing, which could be deadly. So two days later I went in for my surgery.
My Grampy had died a week earlier and his memorial service was supposed to be the following Saturday. This was before all this medical stuff went down. This also meant that a whole bunch of my extended family was in town that weekend. I obviously couldn't go to the service the day after my surgery, but that Sunday they came to visit me before I got out of the hospital. Thoroughly ignoring the "Two visitors at a time" sign on the wall, seventeen of my cousins, and aunts, and uncles crowded into my tiny room.
The thing about my family is that we make jokes. All. The. Fracking. Time. Everything anyone says is game to be turned into a pun or a play on words, that may be somewhat lame, but clever enough to be really funny. The thing about surgery is that it hurts. The thing about laughing is that it uses your abdominal muscles. So when you're laughing your butt off because of the constant string of jokes your uncle is making, it also means that the laughing is extremely painful. Also, when you ask your uncle to "please stop making jokes because it hurts to laugh!" He replies with something along the lines of "I'm sorry. I know my jokes are sometimes hard to stomach." Which just keeps the laughter going.
Bottom line, that summer was miserable. But my family always makes thing seem better.
 |
| I believe I was looking up at the ginormous Care-Bear (my obsession at the time) balloon my aunt got me. |
Yeah, that sounds like my father all right. Uncle Bill knows how to throw the puns around, too, but he probably showed more mercy on the occasion. Well, that was a Very Intense Week, and while it was hard to see you in pain, and hard to deal with the other events of the weekend, it's still always wonderful when we all get together.
ReplyDeleteBizarre. My Word Verification word is "redache." Eerily topical.