Appendix Adventure

Well this last two weeks have been a bit of unexpected excitement. I was quite sick over the weekend (14th-15th) with stomach problems. I managed to successfully get through teaching the new volunteer training at Circle of Life on Saturday and playing Sunday brunch with my great group at the GuestSuites Hotel but by the time I got home I was not well. After a lot of time at the doctor over the next couple of days I ended up having emergency appendix surgery on Wednesday night! Right before the surgery I asked the doctor if he thought I’d be able to do the wedding I had scheduled on Saturday. He didn’t think so but mentioned that he knew a quarterback had played once very soon after the surgery. Being the football geek that I am, I said “Ben Roethlisberger, start of his second year.” You never know when football stats will come in handy. The doctor just shook his head and smiled. I got home from the hospital late on Thursday night. Luckily, my wonderful friend, Brenda Bowen Cox, was on standby for doing the wedding if I wasn’t able to make it but since I was playing a specific selection of music for this wedding I felt it would be cruel to toss it to her at the last minute. I was determined that “the show must go on” and I successfully made it through the wedding. No one was aware of my medical problems and everything went smoothly except that I was sitting in the sun for the whole ceremony. It wasn’t a hot day so I didn’t think it would be much of a problem but my iPad decided to overheat in the middle of the recessional and shut down! I was a little freaked out by that and worried about my iPad but I continued to play and later my husband asked me what I had played because it was beautiful! Advantage of a harp. Almost no matter what you do, you sound great. I am very grateful to William Reyes, the wonderful guitar player, who covered for me at Sunday brunch. My stomach is one big bruise and, frankly, I look pregnant. There is no way I could have sat and played for three plus hours. Today I’m doing much better and will start to play again this afternoon. I’m hopeful that I’ll get the all clear from the doctor on Thursday and Brunch will be no problem on Sunday. I also have two weddings the following weekend, my iPad class to teach and my four students to teach so this is no time to be lazy!