Appendix Apocalypse, 2025

An Exile and Firefighter Discuss Who's to Blame for Medical Errors and the Cost to Benefit Ratio of our Recent Hospital Stay

My main firefighter, Sharky

“My appendix flew out the window”

Elpe (Exile): So much change. Who can even metabolize it? Iy yi yi!
Sharky (Firefighter): Like what change, Elpe?
Elpe: First, my appendix flew out the window. That’s a lot of change!
Sharky: (Laughing) Okay, that’s one way to put it. I’m sorry we lost our appendix on the road.
Elpe: It flew out the window, landed in the road, and now it’s in the rear-view mirror. See ya, sucker! I hate that appendix.
Sharky: Understandably. I’m sorry it decided to break up with us. Or get clogged up so it couldn’t function anymore.
Elpe: I’m not here to have compassion for that organ. It went rogue. I’m mad at it!
Sharky: You have a right to be.
Elpe: Look what happened to my belly button! It has a big rainbow-shaped scar on top where the knife lady pulled it out of me in a bag!
Sharky: It’s nice she explained they put it in a bag, moved it over to the belly button, and pulled it out the incision, which is why it’s the biggest scar.

Never trust the hospital to listen to anything you say, ever

Elpe (Exile): What I mind is the hospital people don’t listen to shit you say about what you’re allergic to, and that’s annoying!

I may as well have been speaking Swahili when I said, “I’m allergic to polyethylene glycol” but otherwise, we made it through the apocalypse pretty well.
Sharky (Firefighter): Elpe, I’m sorry we didn’t protect you from all the crap they gave us in the hospital.
Elpe: But why should YOU feel bad when they’re the idiots? We were reeling from peritonitis, IV antibiotics every four hours which included morphine we asked them NOT to give us, and we told every nurse and doctor we are specifically allergic to polyethylene glycol.

So hey— what did they do? Gave us novocaine patches which have propylene glycol in them. Gave us colace which has polyethylene glycol in it. Give us gabapentin which has polyethylene glycol (PEG) in it. You’d think there was a PEG sale and they wanted to make sure I got every F thing with PEG in it they could think of!!! I’m not blaming you, Sharky.

Sharky: I’m disappointed we didn’t push back harder and distrust the doctors enough. I guess we were so beaten down by surgery and a lack of food and general pain and weakness it was hard to distrust everyone every minute of the day, but that is what’s required when you’re in a hospital.

Elpe: Hopefully there will be no next time, but next time we’ll read our chart online in the portal EVERY DAY to see how they’re lying to us (I read in my chart my IV contained morphine which I explicitly requested not to receive). I also had to look up all the ingredients in all the drugs they gave us and find out I was allergic to not one, not two, but three things they gave us. Fun times!

Protector sad they failed to protect

Sharky (Firefighter): I think we also looked so much up in the beginning, like the CT scan contrast and the IV antibiotic, and they were actually acceptable (the contrast was iodine, not some other insane heavy metal for instance). Because of that, we may have been lulled into a false sense of trust.

Elpe (Exile): That makes sense! I’m not mad at you, I’m really not, Sharky.

Sharky: I know, but I’m disappointed in myself as a protector. I failed at my job. When we were the most vulnerable, I trusted other people WHO I KNOW NOT TO TRUST and I, of course, was lied to and treated with disregard.

No nurse or doctor could be bothered to even show me the lidocaine patch and say, “Are these ingredients okay with you?” I mean, I get they don’t have time to look them up themselves…they have to hang out when they’re not on call talking about vacations they’ll be taking and sharing online images of villas in Europe, god forbid they take 10 seconds to look up the ingredients in the crap they’re giving me…

Elpe: I’m sorry they let you down like that, Sharky.

Sharky: Well, I’m just sorry I let you down! We were in the hospital five days. Part of why were there was our digestion wouldn’t start up after surgery (they called that “ileus”). We TOLD THESE IDIOTS polyethylene glycol constipates me. Besides the IV antibiotics for peritonitis, one GOAL of me being there was to help my digestion start working. So why give me not one, not two, but three medications that were LITERALLY DOING EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what they said their goal was??? It’s maddening. I could pull my hair out if I had hair. For the love of God, it’s so stupid.

Elpe: Hospitals are good at cookie-cutter protocols, and if you fit into them, they can save your life, but if you don’t, you’re fucked! We mostly fit into their protocol so we mostly did okay. But the fact we’re one of the 20% that’s allergic to PEG, a favorite nasty allopathic ingredient, made things worse.

Further adventures in undesired medications: Tylenol

Sharky (Firefighter): Speaking of this, I’m sorry I didn’t work harder to protect you from Tylenol.

Elpe (Exile): Again, I don’t blame you. That was ONE MEAN NURSE. She was hell bent on forcing us to take it. Our fever was only a few degrees but she was in a lather! She was NASTY. It’s hard when you’re weak and dependent, all by yourself, and then the person your care depends on gets frosty and vicious about how you “have to” take something. Even though you technically don’t, it’s very hard to say, “I’d like to give it the night to see if the fever comes down on its own” when she’s so intense and insistent. I don’t blame you.

Sharky: I blame me. I had a shock today about it.
Elpe: What happened?
Sharky: Oh, I read about a SIDS case where two twins, Dallas and Tyson Shaw, were vaccine injured. Kinda reminded me of us — the mom told the pediatrician that people in their family have bad reactions to flu shots.

The pediatrician didn’t care! Just like the nurses and doctors DID NOT CARE when I said I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM with polyethylene glycol. These folks DON’T CARE because “allergies” to their cookie-cutter protocols don’t register…not in their weirdo online portals, not in their brains.

A nurse told me “our system didn’t flag any of your medications because the search term the system uses is PEG-100 and you said polyethylene glycol, which didn’t match.” YES BUT a 10 second search online gave me the words “polyethylene glycol” or “propylene glycol” for all three medications. So what if your STUPID system didn’t flag it? It took literally 30 seconds to look up all three medications and see they would HARM not HELP me. No one could be bothered to do that!

Also, where the F is the informed consent? I told at least three people I did NOT want morphine. I can read! I’m literate! It says in my chart notes that morphine was in my IV. Where’s my F-ing informed consent on that?? Apparently saying, “I do not want morphine” has no effect since it was in my IV’s! God forbid I can get two cavities filled without anesthesia but I can’t be given the CHOICE to request morphine IF NEEDED. They thought I needed it, so they put it in the IV. No consent.

But I digress. The kids’ pediatrician didn’t listen to the mom, and gave the twins flu shots. They started to turn blue the next day and looked super sick, so they went to the hospital, where they were given Tylenol, which is pretty much a death warrant in those cases. The LAST thing anyone in an immune crisis needs is glutathione-reducing, fever-suppressing Tylenol. The kids died. I know 250,000 people die every year in the US medical system from ‘medical error,’ so I know it’s a drop in the bucket… but because I know this, I feel terrible at how much they got away with on MY WATCH at the hospital. I failed to protect! It’s my job. I’m tearing my hair out about it.

I feel devastated I let that nasty nurse FORCE Tylenol on us. I mean, if I couldn’t even protect US from an overbearing nurse forcing it on us, what hope do parents have of protecting their kids from it? People think it’s safe. It’s NOT!! 56,000 people go to the ER every year because of Tylenol and around 400 people DIE of Tylenol overdoses. I don’t trust it and I did NOT want to take it.

I’m mad about it because I tend to have low glutathione levels. So the last thing I need is a medication that reduces them further, particularly when I’m trying to heal. Glutathione (GSH) is a major antioxidant! Tylenol annihilates it. This is stupid! You also need GSH for airway health, and I had collapsed lower lungs (bibasilar atelectasis). All the more reason NOT to take Tylenol FFS! Oh I’m annoyed.

Exiles reassure Protectors the important outcome was achieved, even if we ingested things we didn’t want to

Elpe (Exile): I’m sorry we had such a rough go on so many levels, first, by having our appendix decide to disintegrate, and second, by being caught in an allopathic, cookie-cutter medical system that’s 17 years behind the time when it comes to the impact of Tylenol on glutathione status and the reality that 20% of people are HURT not helped by polyethylene glycol.

Sharky (Firefighter): Ugh, ugh. I’m glad to hear my failures are MINE to handle, and that you’re not holding them against me.

Elpe: I’m not! I’m aware of what a monolithic and archaic institution we were up against, and all things considered I think we escaped it well and were able to benefit from surgery that saved our life.

Obviously they gave us stupid medications that delayed our healing, and we also had to wait 11 hours in the ER to get care in the first place which delayed our healing, so on the front and back ends, our contact with the hospital was terrible and bad, but still worth it to have the surgery save our life!

Sharky: I appreciate the reminder that the cost-to-benefit ratio is in our favor.

Survival is what matters! We’ll take it!

Elpe (Exile): Someone on Substack commented that before penicillin, peritonitis was 100% fatal. And look! We had peritonitis and survived. So I’ll take it, Sharky.

Sharky (Firefighter): All right, I guess that makes me feel better. It’s dangerous to have a medical crisis, and the medical system is also dangerous, but all things considered, I didn’t do a great job — I’d give myself a B-. But I didn’t die, and that’s really the outcome that’s the most important.

Elpe: Now you’re talking!

Sharky: “Acute perforated appendicitis with peritonitis.” I was up against a great foe. I guess I’ll cut myself some slack and be satisfied with a B minus.

Elpe: I rejoice! Way to go on the B-, Sharky. I’m proud of you!

Sharky: Oh for fuck’s sake, you’re cheering me up despite my best efforts to feel annoyed and gloomy about my inability to stand up to the nasty nurse on the fever night when she forced Tylenol on us, and my aggravation it didn’t occur to me to check the portal DAILY to read my chart notes and find out I was being morphined against my will, and my frustration that I was too out of it to look up EVERY SINGLE medication they gave me.

If there’s a next time, I’ll do better, but hopefully there won’t be. And meanwhile, I started out this conversation at about an 8 of self-flagellation, and it’s at about a 4 now. So I feel a lot better. I thought I was jumping in here to help you process this experience, but you ended up helping me, Elpe.

Elpe: What are friends for? ❤️