Marco's latest mass mailing, August 17, 2004:

 

Hello everyone,

Thank you to all who have written me over the last weeks – sorry I haven’t been so good at writing back. I was in hospital with an appendicitis. They removed the appendix and released me after five days, and on day six I developed an infection. So, back to the hospital, open up the stitches and, since the wound had started healing shut, it needed to be cut open again (the doctor said he could put me under for that bit, but since it only took a few seconds he asked me to just grin and bear it please – it did build character). A good sauce-pan full of dark and viscous liquid streamed out. The next few days the wound was regularly stuffed with gauze and then bandaged. They removed all this for me to shower, and it was sort of fascinating to see this mouth-like opening in my abdomen. It wasn’t REALLY all that mouth-like, of course – no teeth, no lips and no communicative or digestive capabilities – but it looked enough like a mouth to me. It was recommended that I stick the shower head right into that orifice to really wash it out. This sounds pretty revolting, but I decided it’s something I have to try, right? I mean, what are you gonna do, miss out on possibly your only opportunity EVER to stick a shower-head into an open wound?

I was operated on again so that they could put a drainage tube into the cut and stitch it shut again. It was sort of funny because I woke up from surgery to the sound of someone yelling at my face, asking me if I can breathe. I must have still been a little high after that, because the next thing I remember is a nurse asking me to please stop singing.

So, after one more week of lying around in a hospital (the food was actually quite good), watching the first few days of the Olympics (Germany is very disappointed with its swimmers, but has been doing all right in the judo tournaments), and reading (among other things, some short stories by Argentine authors – gotta work on that Spanish again), I was released again today. Unfortunately this whole affair meant that I had to miss out on helping out at the summer camp in southern Poland where I had such a blast last year. But I can’t complain, I had a restful time. Now I gotta start getting ready for Amsterdam…

Again, sorry if this is a disappointing payback for the eMails that I’ve gotten from all of you, but I hope you’ll understand I was indisposed.

Marco