‘Ed and the Dolphins’

Iwant to be a drummer in a rock band some day. Right now I play in my school orchestra. I get to crash the cymbals together at our next concert. But during our last rehearsal, the music sounded strange, as if we were under water. And I kept missing my part. “You OK, Ed?”

“It’s so hot that my hand got sweaty.”

Mr. Smith, the music teacher, looked at me funny. “Hot? The air conditioner’s on high. Please see the school nurse.”

Nurse Riley frowned after she pulled the thermometer from my mouth. “You’ve got a temperature,” she said. “Anything hurt?” With my finger I followed the pain as it traveled from my belly button to my lower right side.

Nurse Riley had that same funny look on her face that my teacher had. “You could have the flu,” she said. “Or it could be something more serious.”

“Ouch!”

I was in the emergency room with my mom.

A doctor was pressing the lower right side of my belly. “Your appendix is a small tube branching off your large intestine. Sometimes it gets inflamed or infected. That’s called appendicitis. Luckily, the appendix is one part of your body that you don’t need.” Great! I thought. I won’t need an operation after all. “But an infected appendix can burst. That’s why it’s important to remove it quickly. I’ve ordered tests and if they show appendicitis, your operation will begin in a few hours.”

A nurse took some blood from my arm, and a man came in with a machine. I couldn’t tell the doctor or my mom how scared I was.

“I’m going to do a sonogram,” he said. He spread clear gel on my stomach, then pressed a wand-shaped thing against it. A shadowy image appeared on a computer screen. “It’s appendicitis,” the smiling doctor said. “See you in the operating room.”

Believe me, I didn’t smile back. I was scared. Then a woman wearing a badge opened the curtains. “I’m Terri,” she said. “I’m a child life specialist. I help kids understand things that happen in the hospital.”

“Did I do something that made me sick?” I mumbled.

“Not a thing,” Terri explained. “Nobody knows what causes appendicitis, or why some kids get it.” At least it wasn’t all the candy I ate yesterday. “In a little while, a nurse will take your blood pressure – it feels like a tight squeeze on your arm. You’ll get a paper hat and paper slippers to wear and some medicine to make you sleepy.”

The part about getting sleepy worried me. I remembered when my dad told me that the vet had put our dog Skittles to sleep. Could the same thing happen to me?

“Can something bad happen while I sleep during the operation?” I asked.

“A very special doctor, an anesthesiologist, controls the medicine that makes you sleep. He watches you the whole time to make sure you’re OK.”

Then the doctor opened the curtains and said, “It’s time.”

I must have looked scared because Terri pointed to a photo of dolphins that hung along the corridor wall. “Just look at the dolphins. In a little while, you’ll sleep the way you sleep in your bed at home.”

The dolphins were the last thing I remembered.

When I woke up, my mom, dad and my brother were there.

I stayed in the hospital for two more days. But I made it back to school in time for the concert. Everyone looked at me funny when it was time for me to crash the cymbals. They probably wondered if I would do it right without my appendix.

I did.

Thanks to Amy Waddell Albin, UCLA Health Sciences, Dr. Carl Blau, Dr. Laurence Lang and Rebecca Martinez, child development specialist, Mattel Children’s Hospital, UCLA for their help.