Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 95 -Soren Goes Back to the Hospital!

Episode Date: June 26, 2021

In this episode we don't really ask that many questions, but Soren tells a really long story and its great!  And as always big thanks to our sponsors.  Thanks to BetterHelp.  Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/qq

So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, author of How to Fight Presidents and staff writer for last week's Night with John Oliver and the last unmarried wife guy, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello. Hello, everybody.

I'm Soren Bui. I am a writer for American Dad, technically a co-producer at this point which uh sounds pretty good i think makes me sound like um i invented the show or like had a hand in it not the case not the case at all i'm just riding the coattails of other people standing on the backs of giants it is there's something oh oh you're still talking about this is still your introduction all right yeah mean, I don't really have anything else. I'm a dad and like a homeowner and some of that other boring bullshit. Sure.

It's certainly like, even though I'm technically in the biz, which is short for business, I still, whenever I'm watching a show, I have no idea what any of the credits mean. And you see a show that's been on for a long time like the office and it just seems like the amount of producers grow and grow and then it like because in the beginning there's like one or two and then suddenly it's like co-producer john krasinski co-executive producer steve carell co-producer jenna fisher co-producer rain wilson and just like people move into these positions so that like by the end of the credits, there's like 14 producers and co-producers on a show. Yeah. That's why people have asked very good questions before

I've seen on Twitter where they're like, why are there like 12 VPs on a show? Why are there 12 executive producers? How is that possible? And it's like, well, that's just the way that in most shows, that's how a contract works in which you, you guaranteed an advance into certain levels. And so like you start as a staff writer, you go into a story editor, then an executive story editor, then you become a co-producer and then a producer and then a supervising producer. And like, then there's like all these just dumb names that really just mean you've just been a writer on the show for this many years.

Yeah. It's like counting the rings of a tree afterwards. Like you get to co-produce you're like okay i can count backwards and see when you started it's extra funny that uh producer as a title sounds so divorced from writer as a title that it really does seem like you had a hand in the show that like if you're there just a few more years from now then it'll suddenly be created by sorenren Bui. Like you get, you get promoted to that position. It feels actually a lot like Cracked where we would, we were writers, we were columnists and stuff like that. And those have, those are kind of sexy titles. And then gradually we were like, you were a supervising editor. Yeah, I was senior management for demand media.

Senior manager. We're like, you're're you're still doing a lot of the same work but now also you have some other people who you have to take care of and make sure that they're feeling okay every day at their job and it's you you get promoted into these roles that don't make any sense because you've been there for so long and they're not allowed to just pay somebody who's creative that's not how it works i remember there was there was one time where uh jack promoted me and i was like i'd like to keep my my my title like i like head writer that's really cool title and he was like we just we can't we have to call you senior manager or the system won't allow you to get a raise i was like oh all, all right. Probably senior manager, comma, content. This blows.

Whoever sees that in payroll, they see that a creative is being paid and they have to sound the alarm. They're like, this man is being paid this much to write? That's bullshit. Unacceptable. I write emails every day. Thanks to BetterHelp for supporting Quick Question. For 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com slash QQ. Start living a better life today. We're going to get into the show.

I don't know if anyone can hear. This is not a COVID update, just a brief life update before we get into the show. I don't know if anyone can hear like a bounce in my voice or a pep in my step. I have again relocated to a beloved quiet beach town in New Jersey. And I'm just over the moon giddy while I'm here. Is it the same beach town? Um, if I ever named the beach town in a previous episode, then no, it's a different one. Um, well, you built up such a repertoire with all the people there the community that lived there i was hoping maybe you'd go back and dive right back in but i understand

yeah um but actually it is the same town and i and i have uh i've run into people that i met the last time i was here and it's just it's it's it's very thrilling because i was here in the winter uh which is a totally different vibe, obviously. And now there are a lot of tourists and also COVID restrictions have been lifted. So there's a lot of life in general. And it was crucial to me pretty early on in my stay here that I find someone who remembers me from my last stay here. So I can put some distance between myself and what i'm considering like the actual tourists because i'm not a tourist right oh that's a i'm from here

yeah i'm with you 100 on that i um uh remember you're on my team when i say this i've traveled abroad uh for a semester of school and then i i was just like riding around on the Eurorail, which is a train that just travels around Europe. And I didn't know where I was going. I didn't have a plan, but I would show up in a city and I'd be like, all right, well, let's figure this shit out. And I hated that I had this giant backpack on my back because it just like, it immediately was a sign

that said, you don't belong here. And that feeling is something I like, I try to avoid it every single turn in my life of yeah i'm not actually i i'm awkward i'm not supposed to be here so i would cram this thing away and i would try and figure out the city and in a few days like i could spend three days in barcelona i know the train system at that point i know the restaurant that i like and at that point i'm on the train i'm like i know where i'm going this is very exciting and like i don't even have to look at the stops and like see other people in there like

looking at the train map and everything i was like oh you fucking rookies and just the feeling of feeling like you belong there even after 72 hours was thrilling to me i was i was certainly like desperation overcompensating when I first got back here. I went to my old familiar coffee shop and saw a barista that was not the one that I remembered from before. And like, I'm wasting no time. I was like, is Gia still working here? Gia?

I know Gia. Is Gia still working here? And is she still studying medicine on the side? Okay. I belong here, everyone. That's good. That's good. That's good for her. How are her kids?

Yeah, that's good, though. I'm really pleased that you're running into people that remember you, and so you can set yourself apart from the other Taurus. Yeah. But now let's get into the show where we ask each other questions. Soren, I had a quick question for you.

Mm-hmm. So listeners of the show, DLB's devotees in the sworn questions. Soren, I had a quick question for you. Mm-hmm. So, listeners of the show, DLB's devotees and the sworn swords of Soren, they probably recall that in a previous episode, you talked about kind of a harrowing time for yourself where your daughter bumped her dome on an open bathroom drawer, and it was scary, and also you broke broke your toe and that was harrowing uh and that's in the past now and as of this recording we just passed father's day

weekend so now that you're out of the woods on that i just wanted to know soren how was your father's day weekend thank you so much for asking well uh i don't know if you can notice anything different about me uh i'll do a little turn here i am maybe you notice that i'm a little lighter a little sleeker okay i got rid of an organ over father's day yeah i got rid of my appendix mazel um and now i've got i mean i don't i don't know how i feel about them yet but i got some scars which is something i was waiting to do for a while now you know during covid you can't decide should i do it shouldn't i yeah i don't want to regret it like am i gonna get drunk and get myself some scars and so finally i just went you you know, I'm pulling the trigger. I'm going to get some scars. And now I have three fun little scars on my tummy and I've three. Yeah. So I'll tell you why in a second, but, uh, I started to feel really terrible on

Friday and I was, I didn't know what it was. I was just like, oh, my stomach hurts in a way that I don't recognize. It didn't feel like muscles. It didn't also feel like a stomach ache or anything. It was something totally unrecognizable to the point where it only felt comfortable when I was lying on my stomach or putting pressure on it. And I didn't get it. And I was like, maybe this will just go away. And then that night, it bothered me some more. And I took some Advil, woke up in the morning and actually felt pretty good.

And I was like, okay, well, assuming that this thing goes away, I'll work out later today. If it doesn't, then I don't know. I'll go to urgent care, I guess. And it just started to get worse and worse. So I went to urgent care and they said, oh yeah. They started like poking me. I laid on the table and they just start poking around. And I'm talking to the woman as she's poking and all of a sudden they do that and she goes oh that's not good and i was like what what do you mean she's like i think that you might have appendicitis you have to go to the er right now and if you do have it you have to get it removed right now so on a day where i was just like planning to go like a little jaunt over to urgent care again where you know a place where they know me by name now where i can walk in and be like hey how's nina is she still uh still working the front desk

or did she finally move back there with a big computer um but uh i i got there they're like yeah this is this is probably appendicitis you're gonna have to go to the er and then i got it just like i'm gonna run down this ER trip for you because it is a nightmare. It's just awful there. Do we have time for this? Yeah, I think we got time. I went to the ER. Let me back up 15 years. Okay. Let me also back up we have time for some of this let me back up 15 years i went to the er uh this specific year i'm actually not even going to say the name because i don't want to just put them on blast because some of what they did was actually really good but i went to this er uh had a sprained ankle and it had started to turn kind of blue and i thought i don't want this to

be a situation where the circulation is being cut off. I should go to the ER and just get this checked out. Went there, uh, a doctor, it took forever to be seen because in the ER it always takes forever. A doctor finally came and looked at it. Didn't even get like a room or anything, just continue sitting in the waiting room. And a doctor came out and he had a crew with him. He had the young students who were like, uh, shadowing him. And he looks at it and then. He had the young students who were like shadowing him. And he looks at it and then touches a scab over on my ankle. And he's like, what's this from? And I was like, oh, that's from like weeks before.

And you can tell, like it's already like the edges of it have fallen off and everything. And he goes, this isn't a sprained ankle. This is an infection. And I was like, no, I mean, I remember doing it. It's a sprained ankle. And he's like, then your sprained ankle is infected from this wound. And I was like, oh. And so he put me on an IV.

I sat in this hospital for several hours watching Matrix Reloaded with an IV and then had to take a bunch of medication too and paid just an exorbitant amount of money for this ER visit where I also had to just be like an inpatient, uh, uh, I don't know the inpatient prices for having the IV and everything and sitting there with it dripping into my arm. So then I had to go to a return visit and the new doctor there looked at my

ankle and went, this is a sprained ankle. And I said, yeah, I fucking know. He's like, what the, the, uh, antibiotics that you're taking, please stop taking them. Well, he stopped just short of saying,

I'm sorry about this. He was just like, so you understand that a sprain, it has redness. There's some heat to it. It's swollen with an infection. There's some redness, there's heat to it. It's swollen. You can understand the mistake and never said, i'm sorry or anything like that and i was too young to think why would they um yeah and then i feel like he's also there's like an undercurrent of like also you gotta know these med students they're so young they're so they're so fucking cool they'll eat you alive you gotta seem like one of those tv doctors or they'll just eat you alive you have to be like boom that's lupus or else you'll look like such a fraud. So that guy, you really did a huge service to that other doctor.

You made him, you let him save face by saying a sprained ankle was an infection. It made him look like a genius. And those kids respected him for like 12 more hours. Yes. And so I go back to the same, I didn't even realize it was the same hospital. Uh, at first I just walk into the waiting room and immediately I'm like, I've been in this waiting room. I have a feeling about this waiting room and it's not a good one. And, uh, I've been to other doctors since then. I have this issue of being misdiagnosed with things. I don't trust hospitals. Um, it's just the thing that I've got. This is just one case of me being misdiagnosed. So I, I don't generally go to them. I go to this hospital, I get in the ER.

I just have to sit there and wait for my blood test. Uh, two hours later, I get to do a blood test. But in the meantime, uh, I should mention that the, at the urgent care, they had said, we're sending you over there. Please don't eat or drink anything because if they have to do surgery, you can't have had any food or water in your system or anything no juice no water nothing and so i was like okay two hours later get my blood test two hours go by till i don't even get a result all they do is they call me back in they're like all right we need you to wait over in here now and so

they put me in a hallway on a bed because the all the rooms are completely overflowed. And so I'm just in a hallway with a bunch of other sick people and waiting. And then nobody's really telling me anything. Four and a half hours go by. And then this doctor, this fucking doctor comes out. And it's the same doctor from 15 years ago. And I am at this point already a little upset because these are interrogation tactics generally. Like I'm now not being told anything.

I've been waiting all this time. I'm not allowed to have food or water. I wasn't even allowed to pee for a long period of time because they were like, we're going to need to do a urine sample, but we're not quite ready to see you yet. So please hold on to it. So I'm just like,

I feel like cattle in a way that's not good where people are telling me what to do no one's telling me anything but i'm also still not allowed to do anything so uh i'm i'm already pretty livid and he comes up and he's like okay let's see what we got and a nurse at this point has told me to put on these scrubs not scrubs these this hospital gown and i'm you know a minute i change into it in the bathroom i walk out and i'm like i can't walk in either direction in this thing because this hall is crowded with people yeah and uh they're they're all gonna see my butt uh as like in a kathy cartoon and um so i'm kind of like holding it shut and i go and i sit down on the bed and he comes over

and he's like all right well let's take a look and you lift up the gown and i was like do you do you really want me to do he's like yeah and so i looked it up he's like took your pants and underwear off huh and i was like motherfucker somebody tell me what to do somebody just tell me what to do and uh he nicely puts the sheet over me at that point and then he feels around, and he's like, yeah, I think this might be appendicitis. We could give you a CT scan and know for sure, or I could just send you up to surgery, and we can get it taken out.

And I was like, so you would take it out even if it wasn't actually appendicitis? He's like, yeah, we can get it out quick. I was like, no, not you. I'm not doing it. And I was like, no, please do the CT scan. He's like, okay. A little crabby, huh?

Is it because you're not having any food or water? And I was like, motherfucker. The doctor asked if I was crabby because I wasn't eating and drinking. Like, toying with me. Yeah. This guy has just lived up to his reputation in my mind at every single turn. I hate him. That was a real, 15 years ago, was a real learning opportunity for this doctor. And I hate him. That was a real 15 years ago was a real

learning opportunity for this doctor. And he just let it whiz right by. And so I, I just hate this guy. And the nurses with him is like, I'm being short with both of them. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not being great at answering the questions. I'm not my normal self where I'm like, yes, no, I'm, I'm giving you exactly the information you need. I'm kind of like looking around a lot. Cause I'm trying to decide if I should run or like leave this hospital right away. I'm like, I maybe it's worth it for me to just go to another hospital.

Cause I, I don't want to be around this guy. And, uh, I stick around. He orders a CT scan. I go in, they pump me full of the dye.

So they can see something in my veins, I guess. And, uh, I go in and out of it in and out of it. And then they're like, okay, now wait. And so I wait for another four hours. And then a nurse comes and says,

yes, you have an inflamed appendix. We're going to need to take it out. But first we got to draw a bunch of blood. And listeners, I don't know if you're familiar with my phobia of blood, but it's boy, it's still going strong. And so they, they, they have, they hooked me up to a, they've already put me on an IV to put the dye in me. And they're trying to get the blood out of that.

And it's not working. They're like squeezing it and kind of poking at it and stuff like that. And it's not working. And they're like, all right, we're gonna have to do it out of your hands. I was like, okay, let's just get it. Let of poking at it and stuff like that and it's not working like all right we're gonna have to do it out of your hands i was like okay let's just get it let's just get it done and so i'm giving him my hands and looking away and they're and this doctor comes in at one point he's like oh you're lucky it's her man you don't like you don't like needles and i was like no he's like man i would just jab you man okay just as a sidebar i i like that your your blood is uh still under your control and on your side, that it's resistant to coming out.

Because it's like, no way, man. He hates that shit. He hates seeing us. So we're staying put. And the reason I don't like it is because it's mine. I made that. I keep it. I'm not just going to give it away.

Like, the point of it is to stay in my body. And it was a nightmare. I was getting pricked and pulled in every direction and then this doctor came in to talk to me about the surgery and i stopped him and i was like i'm really sorry i'm not gonna be able to pay attention to anything you're saying to me because i'm just thinking about this needle that's in my hand right now and he's like oh okay then and walked away in a way that was like oh oh look at this pussy or not i guess that wasn't really the subtext there's a subtext in my mind,

but it was a, wow, okay. Don't have to be rude about it kind of thing. And I just wanted to shout at everybody. I wanted to be so mad with everyone because by this point I'd been there for, since three o'clock and it's now about 10 o'clock and I haven't been allowed to have any food or water. I haven't, and when people are like,

well, you don't have to be rude. They have that kind of attitude about it. I'm like, I know I'm so far beyond that. Like I was so cool when I went to urgent care. You should see me. I was jiving, even though I hurt in my stomach. I was still like doing jokes. I was telling them about how I knew about appendicitis because I watched it in Garfield

and friends when I was young and John got it and Garfield to save him. And it was killing. Like my jokes were doing great. They love me at that urgent care. But now I'm just I'm over it. Like I can't be here. And they do all the stuff. Then they take me upstairs to surgery.

There's a woman gives hands me some wet wipes. She's like, wipe yourself down. And I was like, what does that mean? A woman gives, hands me some wet wipes. She's like, wipe yourself down. And I was like, what does that mean? She's like, we need you to do your abdomen and we need you to do your genitals. And I was like, okay.

And then I look over and I'm not in a room. I'm in like a partitioned area that's got other rooms, like adjoining beds near me. And I start to take off my underwear and and there's a, I don't know, 60, 65-year-old man in the room next to me, not asleep, but head turned over on the pillow, just watching me. No. Is it okay if I shut that? And she goes, yeah, okay.

Not like, oh my God, yes, I'm so sorry, or anything like that. Just like, I mean, if you want kind of thing. And I was like, this is the fucking craziest hospital I've ever been to. This can't be the way it normally is and i do think that's that that is a hallmark of hospitals in my experience that like when i broke my wrist and had surgery on that a couple years ago i also had to get inexplicably nude to put on my hospital gown even though like all of the business was going to be happening at my wrist i was still you know like you shuffling down a hallway trying to close this unclosable thing and then like

lying in a bed knowing that at any moment now anyone could see the the whole fucking show and there's just like this desensitization that all doctors and nurses go through and i understand that that must be an essential part of the training to see bodies as just like things that they're working on the way that you would look at a car or or like a carpentry project or something like that but i think in addition to that very essential training for them there should be like some secondary training that's like but by the way your patients don't feel that way your patients still uh uh have some kind of respect for for modesty and and and base level of like decency and dignity we don't all walk into the hospital just like i'm just meat now though when i was sitting in the hallway there was another woman who a doctor came along and

started talking to her and asking her questions about what was going on. She was in severe pain and she was saying she couldn't even sit on the toilet by herself because she couldn't wipe. And like he goes, I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. And he made her say it again. And I'm hearing this all from my bed. And I'm like, I shouldn't be privy to this conversation. Yeah, sure. Maybe a nurse should be there.

A doctor's like they all have some semblance of privacy but i don't i'm gonna say it on a podcast don't say this stuff in front of me and please don't say make me say my stuff in front of you like this is crazy um yeah they just have have lost all sense of what it means to have this own a personal privacy or yeah like a sense of self. So they finally get me all checked in. I got to answer just tons of questions about my last, about living will and stuff like that. And if I want a, they asked me if I wanted any religious practices adhered to during my

surgery. And then they asked if I wanted someone to come. I can't remember what kind of religious man, not a deacon but like somebody who would come and talk to you in when in the military when you're about to die what's that guy uh in the military chaplain chaplain yeah they asked if i wanted a chaplain and i was like what for and like i don't know and then i pushed it harder and he's like i think it's I think it's for more invasive surgeries where there's the chance that you might die. But we have to offer it for every surgery in that case.

And I was like, I don't know. Also, we bought the chaplain. We have him on retainer. He's got nothing to do. Just let him talk to you. By the time I get up to surgery prep, though, it's now one or two in the morning. And there's like,

there was a floating chance that I may not even get to surgery till the next morning. And I was really scared about that because I hadn't eaten or drink anything and I wasn't going to be allowed to. And I was like, that sounds like an awful long time to go without water. Does human body, should I look that up?

Should I see if that's okay? And nobody seemed bothered by it at all and then i found out that it was gonna happen that night and i was like so i got a second wind i was like yes and now i wasn't around a bunch of other people um everybody was telling me things like the surgeon was there and he and then uh the anesthetist anesthetist anesthetist i don't remember anesthesiologist yeah that's the one uh he was there and he's talking to me and at this point like i'm i'm back in like jokey mode and so uh i'm doing these long bits that uh sometimes are paying off and other times very not much not at

all where they take my blood pressure maybe 25 times while I was there. And each time they take it, they tell me what my blood pressure was. And it means nothing to me. The like 180 over 90 or whatever the numbers are don't mean shit to me. So like they'll do it and they'll tell me and I'll be like, that's a good one, isn't it? Or is that a good one? And they'll be like, yeah, it's pretty good. And I'll be like, okay, well, like if you graded me on it,

what kind of grade would that be? Like, I don't know, like a B. And I was like, oh, I should have studied. These are fun bits to do, yeah. And then the one that got the biggest laugh was they came in, they took my blood pressure. They're like, that's pretty good for about to get surgery. Usually people are a little more jumpy.

And I was like, no, I feel pretty good for about to get surgery usually people are a little more jumpy and i was like no i feel pretty good let's get these guts out and uh and that got a that got a nice laugh which made me feel nice went to the operating room they were great i mean they told me like everything that i would expect uh after the surgery and and where i would have pain and stuff like that weird places up in my shoulder i was gonna have pain and in my throat um i can go over why those things happen in a little while because it's actually kind of interesting but they took me into surgery i they're like can you get onto the the table yourself and i was like hell yeah i can because i you know i feel like a hero at this point like i'm walking around with a uh gross gut in me that needs to come out and it's

coming out tonight. This is good. So I climb onto the table. Um, they're like, uh, we're, we're going to have you, we're going to actually change out the anesthetician. Uh, and I was like, oh, okay. I sort of had built this rapport with this guy. The guy was like, it it's okay this is the one

that trained me and i was like okay great perfect let's have him then i should have had him from the start yeah yeah fuck off i don't why do i need you um and they put the gas on me they gave me uh first they just said it was oxygen they tricked me they go this is just some oxygen please breathe deep and then i don't remember anything after that. I woke up and I was all shorn. They shaved me while I was asleep, which is a pretty funny prank. And like, just like a, not shave me completely, but like, you know, shave me just to where they needed to work. So now I have this very funny pubic hairline. very funny pubic hairline and woke up, looked at my stomach and I've got three little bandages on it. They're not huge. They're only like two or three inches each. And what they do is it's a microscopic surgery. So one of them, I think they put a camera in one of them. They used to pump up

my stomach full of air. And then the other one goes in and does the dirty work and cuts off the uh the offending organ and then afterwards the other thing i noticed was that i was pregnant like my belly was massively swollen from the air yeah so they pump you full air and they don't get it all out afterwards it doesn't all come out immediately it like comes out over days i guess or just moves into other parts of your body which is part of the reason your shoulder gets sore, I guess, is that that air just slips up through you as you're sitting up. And then it kind of gathers up in your shoulder, and it's just something extra in there that then just causes havoc and makes you very, very sore in your shoulder. And does that leave through like, were feeling uh extra gassy or anything like that or is that just like no air that leaves your body through your pores i guess it must leave some

other way yeah i i assume it must leave some other way because it's not actually going into an area where i could just fart it out anyway it's like going into the actual stomach itself underneath the muscles and they yeah i don't i don't totally know how it gets out but like they also said they said you're not gonna be able to like shit or pee for a while because when we pump your stomach full like this it's pushing all your guts up into your chest a little bit more and everything just kind of like shuts down because it doesn't know what's going on and so like they're very interested in knowing when you start to uh go to the bathroom again because that means that your body's like okay i can return to normal everything's going to be okay

and then they're you're allowed to leave the hospital but uh the operating team came in the next morning to check on me they said uh we got it out you spent the whole night there well yeah because the surgery didn't happen till so i got to the hospital maybe around three surgery didn't happen till about 2 45 in the morning got it so i went that far without food or water or anything and felt very brave because i did that and then yeah they came in they the operating team said everything went well how are you feeling good uh they said we here's what we did we went in we took it out and i was like and uh how was it and they were like what and i was like was it a good one was it a good appendix and they're like uh you know it was inflamed and kind of juicy and

gross is that what you want to hear good answer yes that's thank you for playing the game um and they wouldn't let me see it I guess they throw it away immediately yeah of course that was gonna be my next question I wanted to they're like we don't have it I was like yeah I get it and so they

almost immediately they sent me home did you explain to them just how much money you could get for that appendix on like twitter if i could encapsulate it and uh give it to people as a pill a little bit of me i bet i could get you know i bet i could get 15 for that i bet you can get way more for your there are people who give like money that they earned doing their jobs to listen to this podcast. That's true. Yeah.

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Join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash QQ for 10% off your first month. Thanks, BetterHelp. So they came in, they checked i mean they're like well there's no rush obviously to get out of here could do try to walk around when you can and then we'll try and you know get you out of here by this afternoon and i was like okay great i get up and i walk around i go into the bathroom and i pee and i'm like this

is great i walk back to the bed and this nurse comes in and he goes, okay, we actually need this room. They're going to let you go. It was like being at a restaurant on a Friday, like where they're like, just try to turn over tables as quick as possible. I'm going to just put this bill here. No rush. I'm just putting it here.

I'm just putting the check in front of you. He came in with like a care package. Basically, there's a water bottle of like a mask mask and he's like okay they're discharging you so when you're ready um you can change back into your clothes here oh okay then they wouldn't let me drive home there's some sort of rule about that after you have anesthesia so my my wife had to come get me and then we had to figure out a shuffle to come back and get the car but ultimately i got this thing removed i felt fucking terrible afterwards yeah um because it's surgery and felt way worse than i did even going in uh can't couldn't like sit up couldn't do a lot of things couldn't lift

my daughter couldn't uh bend over everything kind of hurt i went home and slept for a very long time and then over the last few days i've just been like forcing myself to get out move around as much as like the pain will allow me to and uh now feeling pretty good i think i'm i'm i think i'm gonna make it out of this thing but i took the bandages off i've seen the wounds and they're so gross oh yeah yeah they're they're just because they've got crusted blood on them and that whatever that yellow stuff is they do to sterilize the entire work environment yeah it's still kind of there and uh it's it it makes me very queasy to look at them but one of them's right on the waistband of my pants whenever i like underwear and pants whenever i seem to walk around yeah so

i if i did drive the other day and I just held the seatbelt out at about an inch and a half away from me and kind of shuffled my pants way, way down while I drove. Um, so it's really convenient and terrible. And it was on father's day, which was supposed to be my day. And, uh, all of this is to say it was a really terrible and not fun experience, but now it's done and i i don't think i'll ever need it that's good uh so i've got some follow-ups yeah go ahead the going back to the urgent care uh do you think appendicitis is something that that uh the medical professional can feel externally or do you think her her belief that you had appendicitis

was based on your reaction to the poking? It was reaction to the poking because what happens apparently is generally people get, these are the symptoms, you get a really bad stomach ache and then it kind of moves. It shifts from being a general stomach ache to being just down in the little white right quadrant

of your abdomen. And then pressure there hurts really badly. And pressure where they put pressure on and then take the finger away. It actually hurts more when they take the finger away and like it rebounds. That's a good sign that you've got it. But then there's also stuff that's like fever, chills, other things that you would have if you had an inflamed or infected organ. That your body would be, you know, inflamed or infected organ that your body would be you know setting up the red flags and i wasn't getting any of those all i was getting was the

pain so they that's why it took maybe so long to kind of make sure that it was aspenicitis because the only thing i had was this pain and they're like well there's some other stuff there um that's the kind of stuff that always worries me with with all medical issues when it's not something that they can immediately see or like test for with a drop of blood or a bit of saliva anything that's reliant on the way that you answer questions is terrifying to me because i i have no real sense of like where a pain is located or like what kind of pain it is like my brother has talked to me before about like is it like is it like a muscle pain that you're experiencing or is it or is it like a joint thing or is it a bone thing like

i don't know man it's in some part of my body all right is it like a pulsing or a stinging i you know what forget it never mind i'm fine i can't i don't i'm a bad writer i don't know how to describe things that's very much how i felt on friday when like my wife was like because i was lying down a lot and i think she's getting a little pissed off because i wasn't helping at all i wasn't helping at dinner or anything all i was doing was lying there with a pillow under my stomach like lying on my face and uh she's like so what's what's going on? I was like, I don't know. It's just like, when I sit up, it's hard to breathe, because whatever there's

going on in there, and I can't tell what it is. I'm just sort of hoping it goes away. And she was like, Okay. And then being at the doctor's office. I mean, the fact that I went in the first place is like a huge step forward for me. Yeah yeah i very much my plan was to just work out that day the friday that it hurt i just went and worked out and i was like maybe i can get rid of this saturday i was like maybe i'll just do the same thing this will be the one that knocks it out of me and then finally i was like you know what you'd feel really stupid if this was something serious you didn't go and you don't have there's no other obligation i had that day my in-laws were in town and they had the kids and so i was like like, I'll just, I'm just going to go.

And so I went to the hospital. Thank God I did. And that's, I'm the same way with being very reluctant to go to doctors. As listeners of this show will know that like, I felt the same way when I broke my wrist and went to the ER and they were asking me questions about it. I just want to be like, listen, you don't know me, but you just have to trust me. I almost didn't come here. I almost went to be like, listen, you don't know me, but you just have to trust me. I almost didn't come here. I almost went to brunch.

You have to just know what a big deal it is that I walked in the door and then like adjust all of your expectations to that. And like, I still might leave. You should know that if you ask me any more invasive questions, I might just go. It would also be nice if you could give a qualifier to the doctor to be like, listen, my ego is not going to let me tell you what's actually like the amount of pain that I'm in. I'm sorry. It's just the kind of human that I am. You're going to ask me and I'm going to say four or five because anything above that sounds like something more serious. And I don't want to be,

I don't want you thinking I'm a pussy. Yeah. I like I'm in here cause I'm in a lot of pain and I want to get that resolved. But more than anything else, I want to make sure you're having a good time. Just know like that's my priority today. So adjust all of your expectations around that. Yeah. When I went into the ER and they were kind of testing me out and poking around at me and stuff, they were saying, here's the symptoms that you'd ordinarily be having. You'd be having diarrhea.

You'd be vomiting. You might be a little dizzy. And you're not having any of those. And you don't seem like you're in a lot of pain. And I was like, I don't. Here's the barrier. I don't know how to show you that I'm in pain because that's not a thing I'd like to do. I'm going to just tell you it hurts.

And you need to believe me. Rather than looking at my face or anything like that, trying to determine based on my wincing like just please i say it hurts and you just have to say okay well he's putting on a brave face that's very nice yeah because that's who i am yeah you know it would be helpful if you if if you would just wheel in someone who is very open about their pain and then i could look at them and tell you that mine is worse. That would be very helpful to me. There's some aspects of the story that I haven't told you that yet that I want to tell you now. I brought nothing to the podcast today, so please. Good. There was a moment that really had me laughing. So there was a nice nurse when I was getting all prepped for surgery named Albert. And I noticed just when he

was walking around that Albert didn't wear, usually nurses wear really comfortable shoes because they're on their feet the whole day. And he's wearing hiking boots and he had his scrubs tucked into his hiking boots. And I was like, well, that's a, I haven't ever seen that before. And I just sort of like mentally put it away. And then Albert's going through my medical history and he's like, okay, so are you on any medication i said no he's like what's this what's this hydrocortisone and i was like what he's like oh never mind that's from 2015 and i was like i don't even know what that is that for itch like a bug bite and he's like not really for a bug bite says here that you're supposed to take it rectally two times a day and i was like what

he's like i i have a prescription here for hydrocortisone and you were to apply it rectally two times a day and i was like and there's all kinds of other people around me and everything i was like albert are you fucking with me he's like no it's here and he was like he was dead serious that there was some prescription i in 2015 for a hydrocortisone that i was supposed to be applying to my butt twice a day i was like i don't know where this is coming from albert yeah also albert i don't know if this is going to impact the surgery at all but the doctor should know i have not been doing that yeah this is i am i have not been doing this at all. And I was like trying to rack my brain thinking, let's see, 2015, that's when my son was born.

I would have been at Cracked still. What is this? Like, what could this have possibly been? And I still couldn't figure it out. And then I remember coming down from my drugs afterwards. They put you in another room to kind of wake you up and let you come out of it, your stupor. And I felt pretty good. Albert saw me lift my head up They put you in another room to kind of wake you up and let you come out of it, your stupor.

And it felt pretty good. Albert saw me lift my head up, and he came over and started talking to me. And I asked him about his hiking boots and whether he hikes around the area and what he does and started telling him about some hikes that I liked. And still feeling a little strange and probably not making a lot of sense. And then Albert said that the, he goes that hydrocortisone. And I go, yeah.

And he goes, I was fucking with you. And I was like, thank you, Albert. And I'm so pleased that I have that memory. I mean, so much of that moment, I,

so much of that time is missing where I'm like waking up. I have no idea how long that actually took. Yeah. But it's a very disorienting process saying that really pleased me. It was really funny to hear him say that. Um, but yeah, I had my in-laws here, which was really, really lucky because I couldn't do anything. Um, when I got home and I was just completely useless and they really pulled a lot of weight making meals and keeping the house clean and keeping my kids entertained yeah it was nice that's very handy shout out to in-laws shout out to the in-laws that's uh

it's it's wild how there are a lot of beats that that are similar to my experience getting surgery on my wrist a couple years ago of just like you get there at a certain time and then there's so much waiting around and like the prep that you do when they're like hey don't eat or drink this many hours in advance of surgery it's like great i got it i will not eat or drink this many hours in advance of surgery and then they tack on all of those bonus hours where it was like no no no no i planned for the normal amount that we discussed this is not this was not the plan at all but they don't care it's it's it's like being on a film set where you just like hurry up and wait we just want bodies around until we're ready to call you to to right set where set is surgery and i remember

just lying in that bed in a gown but naked underneath and being very aware of my own nudity and being unhappy about it and like waiting hours and hours and hours, so much so that same as you, I went through like two different rounds of anesthesiologists where the first one comes up and was like, Hey, I'm Brian. I'm going to be an anesthesiologist. I'm going to explain to you what's going to happen. This is the name of the drug that we're going to put in you. You need to consent to all these things and fill out this form. And I'm going to explain the risks and then we should be good to go and then hours go by and he's like all right i'm gonna leave and now you're gonna meet new anesthesiologists and go through this whole thing and i'm just like sitting there watching the nurse shift change it's like

this is this surgery was a mistake i wasn't i was really pumped to do this at 11 a.m it's now 8 30 i think you know what i think i'm fine i'll just have a cast for the rest of my life it just wears down your character so quickly yeah um in a way that like you go in mentally prepared for whatever's about to happen and in our cases surgery is can be a big deal my surgery probably was not. I think it's pretty routine for most surgeons. But I'm terrified. I don't go to surgery every single day.

And I don't like the idea of people cutting me open. It freaks me out. And so I'm like mentally preparing myself this entire time for this. And at every turn, it's just them wearing you down emotionally to be like, and not necessarily doing it on purpose either. It's just like, this is just the way the system works. And you need to be the most raw and vulnerable you are when you go into surgery. It's like, well, why is that necessary? Why do I have to be like that?

But it's over. It's done. I got out of there. I was in and out quick and uh now i just have these terrible bruises and scars yeah do they give you any not necessarily um physical therapy i guess but like anything do they just sort of say like don't do anything your body won't allow you to do or is there specific stuff that you have to stay away from? Yeah, they gave me stuff I want.

They said walk. You can do that as pain allows. But then the nurse also, as I was leaving, was going through this page. He's like, okay, don't lift. And I was like, yeah, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't go lift. He's like, what? And I was like, I won't go lift.

And he goes, what do you mean go lift? And I was like, we're talking about two different things. do you mean he's like don't lift anything i was like oh yes okay i won't do that when he said don't lift i might immediately my thought was don't go to the gym and go lift immediately immediately your thought is this guy recognizes that you are a lifter. Yeah. Thank you for noticing. I can see a lot more muscle tone now that I'm all shorn. Thank you also for noticing.

But no, I won't lift. Yeah. So they gave me very specific things like with bending over, you have to be really careful. And then also with lifting anything up, I'm not allowed to lift much. I have been lifting my daughter some, and she weighs maybe like 20 pounds, but that hasn't, hasn't been a real issue yet, except she, I can keep her in my arms, um, until she doesn't want to be there anymore. And her strategy for getting out of your arms is to push off with her wrists and her knees at the same time. Sure. Just like push away from you.

And where her knee falls is right at the top surgical scar. And so she just pushes right on that thing and I just double over. Okay, you can get down. Do you have to go back to get the stitches out? No. So this is really cool. They a they do this the interior stitches those ones that just dissolve inside your muscles yeah

where they stitch up your abs and then on the outside they don't do stitches they do like a glue they seal it together just the skin together with a kind of glue um so you don't get those big dot scars across you or across the the incision mark you just have the incision mark itself that's kind of cool it's much harder to pop these too it just like the the skin stays kind of flexible so you're not in a real danger of like stretching too i'm not in danger of like reaching my arms up too high and having one of them just split or anything like that these just stay in place for until it you know heals that's great um have i told you that the the when i had to take my own stitches out i can't remember we talked about on the podcast but uh was it because you couldn't see your doctor you couldn't get an

appointment with him yes so it was it was like the two uh the two times that i've had surgery uh in my adult life were both remarkably similar and that like an accident was caused uh on one side of the country while i lived on the other side of the country. And so there was like a whole lot of confusion with doctors and recovery and insurance. This is the one that I've mentioned a little bit on this episode of the podcast was my wrist surgery, which I broke my wrist when I was in California, but was living in New Jersey at the time. So all of my recovery happened in New Jersey with the aid of my brother. The other one before this years ago, I, uh, was visiting my family in Jersey while living in California over the holidays, uh, split my head

open a tiny bit above my eyebrow and had to get stitches from the emergency room there. And then went back to LA and couldn't go back to the original doctor and uh didn't think to just like find some other i don't know if you could just like call a doctor and be like hey take my stitches out right now uh that's like not what's in it for them you know uh and well what's their beacon that's yeah i didn't have any doctor friends or anything like that. So I just talked to my parents and looked up some YouTube stuff and just took stitches out of my fucking eyebrow and it was fine. Huh?

I remember that injury. Yeah. Came back from Christmas break with that. Yeah. I made a bit out of it. I remember that injury. Yeah. I came back from Christmas break with that. Yeah, I made a bit out of it.

I decided when I got back from Christmas break with stitches in my forehead that I was never going to tell any two people the same story for how it happened. That ends up just looking like you were domestically abused. That's exactly the scenario yeah in retrospect it was it's there's no like there was no payoff to that joke it's just me being a stupid little imp just a little a little clown who's like how can i make the world more interesting for me right now you know it'd be a fun creative challenge is don't plan in advance and just like fly by the seat of your pants anytime anyone asks you what happened come up with a new explanation you're the joker yeah yeah so um i the last time i spent time in a hospital you were actually there it's when i was on my bachelor party when i split my face open and i had the same thing where i got stitches in my nose

right at the top of the bridge and uh at the time i went to a doctor who hated me i think there was a doctor that the first time i showed up there to get a physical he was like what are you doing here and i was like i i just want to make sure i'm okay he's like you look fine and he was clearly a doctor for much older people and just didn't want me there and also i don't think he has his clientele either it was like exclusively armenian and i don't i think he saw the name soren which can be armenian and was like yeah i'll take this patient and then when he saw me he was like you what are you doing and uh I had to go back to him to get the stitches out. And he would not make an appointment with me. And I was like, okay, how hard can it be?

It's probably just a knot somewhere, right? If I just cut below the knot and didn't look up any YouTube videos, just try to do it on my own and cut it. Couldn't get them out. And then finally it was like, I accidentally cut my own stitches and I need to come in. And I came in, he was so mad he was just so mad taking them out of my face why did you do this and uh finally got him out but it was the same circumstance where like i was like i don't i don't need to go to a doctor for this i could just do it myself. Sounds like yours was a lot more successful though. I really like the idea of angry put upon doctor

as a comedy character. Like the same energy that teenagers working at a movie theater or a restaurant have. Just like a complete absolute disgust with the idea of having patience. Like you went to work hoping no one was gonna come in today yeah reaching for that reaching for that syringe and it weighs 10 pounds like oh just dragging it off the tray instead of picking it up i thought this was gonna be a

light day but it's this guy and his fucking appendix it's the weekend um but yeah that's my appendix story. It was in the middle of it. I was texting my wife a lot and complaining. I was a big baby about it. There's very little to do but complain. There's so much waiting around. And it's all I could think about too.

And then at a certain point, I was just turning my phone off completely so I could turn it back on if I had to tell her I was going to surgery because I still didn't know if I had appendicitis or not during my waiting around. And I didn't have a phone, didn't have anything, so it's just me staring at the ceiling like a fucking character from Catch-22 in the hospital, just like, wow, time goes by slow here. And doing nothing, just looking at the cracks in the ceiling it was awful yeah

anyway i i so i was complaining to my wife about that i would turn my phone back on just to text her a bunch yeah send her a flurry of texts and then turn it off which i'm sure was not helpful for her because she's worried about me and i'm telling her how terrible things are and then won't answer my phone yeah um i had thankfully my mom came with me for my wrist surgery she flew out to california uh for that not that it was like like your surgery not like a serious risk of anything but you know it's it is always helpful to have someone close by and she says the first thing i said when i came out of anesthesia was i asked for a beer which which was very on brand but i think an even more on brand thing for me was like

because as you're coming out of of anesthesia you're you wake up like seven or eight times you keep waking up for what feels like the first time and then you're like back out so it's very disorienting but i remember in the first window of what felt like real clarity for me was like wake up i would like my underwear back, please. Like that was a thought that like, even throughout surgery, I was still very conscious of my own nudity. It's just like, as soon as I'm allowed to, I'm getting that underwear back. Like, I don't care. You could tell me there were complications in the surgery. It's like, that's fine. So it sounds like the surgery is done then. Okay. Underwear, please.

I foresaw some sort of nightmare scenario where when I was coming out of the drug, so I could see other people being wheeled out from surgery. We actually got bumped at one point because there was more emergency surgery than me where I was just in the prep area for a long time. Finally, I saw that person come out and they're doing a lot of gabbing.

Like they're talking as they're being wheeled out. And then they're doing a lot of talking to the nurses. And I was like, oh, they're just high out of their minds. Wouldn't it be terrible if I come out of there, I finally get into a lucid state and everyone's just sort of a little more uncomfortable around me. Nobody really likes me much. I must have said something and I don't know what it is

and none of the nurses or doctors will tell me because it's that bad. And I just like foresaw this scenario that could happen and I was like, all right, you got to mentally prepare. What are the things you want to talk about? Let's go through talking points you can go over. Right. You have all these nurses and doctors who are like, hey man, people say all kinds of crazy things. So we're not going to, we're not going to hold it against you, but no one's making eye contact with you. Yeah. They go into it beforehand with that prep of like, listen, whatever you say, it's no big deal. And then afterwards, things are just different. Like you clearly have said

something beyond even their realm of what they thought was possible. Yeah. Yeah. We checked the, in all of our years of being doctors, no one has ever, because of anesthesia, screamed the N word, except you. The surgeon quit. we don't really know what to do about this anymore he lost his his passion for the job because of something you said um well i think that that'll probably do us for this episode unless you have any questions for me no that's good great i'll ask you on the next one terrific well uh soren, Soren, I think I speak for everyone when I say we're very happy that this surgery was a success. And we wish you continued health and rehabilitation and whatnot. And if you'd like to tell Soren that himself, you can do it on Twitter at Soren underscore LTD.

You can also reach me at DOB underscore INC. You can email the show at QQ with Soren and daniel at gmail.com or find the show on twitter at twitter.com slash qq underscore soren and dan you can try to email find and hire our executive producer co-producer gabe harder at gabe harder.com we also have a patreon that you can find with just the bare amount of searching online and we hope you uh do that we just released one of our patreon exclusive episodes where we answer questions from you our patrons and uh it's super fun for us to do and uh your money is definitely going somewhere it didn't get a laugh in the moment, Dan, but I wanted to let you know that I appreciate

that you called Gabe our co-producer and executive producer. Oh, thanks, buddy. More than laughs, I like being told directly that a thing was funny. I want to be told I'm a good boy at every turn. That's what I learned the most from Father's Day this year. me at every turn oh he's a good boy he's doing this well all right bye