May have to edit my mother's appendicitis story in future

The Lady of the House has been enjoying “The Lassie Channel” since she found it out there in the great television universe.

One afternoon there was an episode where everybody was in a dither because Timmy, the kid on the show, had appendicitis.

“I haven’t heard much about appendicitis anymore. Do we still have appendixes?” I asked out loud.

“I hear they’re treating appendicitis with antibiotics these days,” The Lady of the House said.

“Seems they were always cutting those things out when they got infected. My mom told me she watched when they cut hers out,” I said proudly.

“What?” The Lady of the House said.

“Yeah, she said she had appendicitis when she was in high school. They gave her a local anesthetic, she said they went in, removed it and she watched as they sliced it open and all these popcorn hulls fell out.”

“I really don’t believe you heard that story just right,” The Lady of the House said after a long pause.

I was troubled.

She was questioning my very reality, a story my mom told me years ago.

I mean my vision was there was Mom sitting up watching doctors remove her troubled appendix and giving a kind of “I see” nod as the doctors sliced it open for her review.

“Maybe doctors told her what was in her appendix when she came to -- after the operation,” The Lady of the House said.

I just stared at her with a “deer in the headlights” look.

“Why did this come up?” she asked.

“It was all because of Ned Miller in Boy Scouts. He almost died because of his appendix. At least that’s what they told us,” I said.

It was on a Boy Scout backpacking trip in the Blue Ridge Mountains back east, about 55 years ago.

There we were, tromping through the woods when Ned, another kid in the Boy Scout troop, started feeling poorly.

One of the scoutmasters, “Sarge,” sidled up to Ned and told him he needed to “buck up and walk off whatever was ailing” him.

“Come on, boy, be a man,” Sarge yelled at the 11-year-old.

Ned collapsed and lay on the ground.

Scoutmaster Phil came up on the scene, leaned over Ned and asked him questions.

Phil poked at Ned’s stomach and Ned bellowed out in pain.

Phil stood up.

“Appendicitis. We gotta get him off this mountain and to a hospital,” Phil said.

In short order, Phil, Sarge and some of the older scouts had trimmed up some fallen tree limbs and a sleeping bag into a stretcher.

They loaded up Ned.

Sarge and a couple of the older scouts all but ran down the trail.

I heard the team made it to where the trail crossed a highway, flagged down a pickup truck and got Ned to a hospital about 30 miles away.

In a few weeks Ned was back at our weekly scout meetings.

I asked him if he got to keep his appendix, put it in a jar or something.

“No,” Ned said, making a weird face and walking away.

When I got home from that backpacking trip Mom told me all about the appendix, appendicitis, how dangerous it could be if the infected appendix burst, and she told me her appendix story.

Maybe when I tell her appendix story in the future I won’t say she watched as they operated.

But it sure sounds like something my mom would do.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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