I'm Glad I Got Appendicitis in the UK (Not the US)

Bloomberg

23-05-2025

Since I was a child, I've been terrified of appendicitis. There was no horseplay with my cousins and siblings after a meal. I suspect that myth was helpful to parents who wanted their children well-behaved in spite of post-dessert sugar highs. Still, everyone is born with an appendix and so we are all at risk one way or another. There are enough horror stories to make us wary. Most famously: Harry Houdini, the legendary magician and escape artist, who couldn't escape from a belatedly attended, ruptured appendix. (Apropos the jumping-about thesis, Houdini was punched in the stomach by an overexcited fan, but he was already experiencing belly pain a day before that.) He died of peritonitis — the bacterial infection of the abdominal cavity caused by pus from the burst appendix — on Halloween 1926, the 11th day after he'd noticed symptoms and about a week after surgery.
All that said, appendicitis — and the appendectomies performed to rid people of the acute infections — is routinely dealt withnowadays, with some 280,000 cases in the US and about 50,000 in the UK every year. The procedures are mostly done laparoscopically with three small incisions that allow a small, lighted camera to guide surgeons toward the inflamed organ to remove it. There are few complications, though soreness and tenderness can last for a few weeks after. It is, despite the small incisions, major surgery. Most cases involve people 30 or younger, perhaps — as some studies surmise — because hormonal activity may lead to the blockage of the appendix's opening to the large intestine, the condition that leads to the inflammation of the finger-like, 2- to 4-inch-long tendril-like pouch. Tennis legend Rafael Nadal underwent an appendectomy in 2015 when he was 28; he went on to win seven more grand-slam titles.