My new definition of pain: Stuck watching 21 days of cable news

Three weeks ago, I found myself lying half-naked on a table surrounded by a lot of people wearing masks intent on plunging sharp knives into me. Even by Baltimore standards, this is considered a somewhat atypical circumstance, at least for a Monday afternoon in March. But there I was having spent the previous weekend on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, hanging out with friends at their brand new home only to gradually realize I’d lost all appetite for food and my midsection had become increasingly tender. It had seemed prudent to return to Baltimore early Sunday and, as things did not improve, to show up at the local hospital emergency room with a suspected case of appendicitis.

Now, my always-skeptical spouse, a seen-it-all medical professional, has a long-standing rule about any family member going to the ER. You must say “yes” to the following question: Is there a bone sticking out? There was not. Still, in an uncharacteristic moment of empathy (or perhaps to get me to stop moaning), she drove me to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center at 6:30 a.m. The timing proved fortuitous. At that early hour, they could take me immediately, evaluate my circumstances, give me a CT scan and conclude the following: First, that I had acceptable health insurance coverage and second, that I had an unacceptable appendix, and it would have to be removed as soon as possible or things could get dicey in there.

I knew a little bit about my unfortunate condition. In the human digestive system, the appendix is roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Senate minority leader. Sure, it probably played a useful role at one time (rounding up good bacteria votes, perhaps) but now it’s just causes disruptive bellyaches in Mitch McConnell fashion. Mine had become infected and would be removed through laparoscopic surgery which involves narrow tubes stuffed into your gut which is also inflated with carbon dioxide gas to make it as spacious as possible. I can only speculate on how amusing this procedure may have been for onlookers. For the 90-minute procedure, I was mercifully knocked out cold. When I awoke in the recovery room, I was assured that I had survived and that the insurance billing was going wonderfully (well, they didn’t say that exactly, but I was a little groggy).

This is where the going got tough. I won’t bore you with symptoms but suffice to say they are all unpleasant in their own disruptive ways. I was sent home with a small quantity of pain medication and a much larger bottle of antibiotics. I was encouraged to move around but spent much of the day lying on a couch trying to find a comfortable position and a decent news program. Both proved elusive. The Russia-Ukraine war was a misery — as was much of the cable news commentary, particularly at a certain network that was just months earlier toasting Vladimir Putin as a genius and now, amazingly, saw him as the evil result of Joe Biden’s lax approach to foreign policy. Talking heads who would have struggled to find Ukraine on a map months earlier were suddenly claiming to have a better understanding of how best how to combat Russia’s air superiority than the Pentagon.

Later, when the confirmation hearings for Kentanji Brown Jackson broke out, it was just as painful to see such an impressive nominee tagged by certain Republicans (unrestrained by their clearly limited understanding of the legal system), as soft on crime despite precious little evidence to back that up. Now, I know what you are thinking here, dear reader. Someone predisposed to retching should never voluntarily watch Sen. Ted Cruz for an extended period of time. Point taken.

It was, I’ll admit, the equivalent of the seasick sampling a few choice morsels from the rotting sardine tray. But when you are appendix-free, you think you might have developed some immunity to the contents of the large intestines. I can faithfully report that no “-ectomy,” short of a brain-ectomy, prepares you for the junior senator from Texas.

Light reading was an option, I suppose, but it’s difficult to keep focused on the written word as your insides roil around. And that would have prevented me from making an important discovery. There is respectable journalism taking place on cable television. It’s just not on the traditional news channels. Turn on ESPN, and you will see well-informed journalists who have built entire careers developing expertise in their field and who continue to closely monitor events, interviewing newsmakers and asking tough questions. Seriously. I bet the average sports talk show host knows far more about the NFL salary cap than any news anchor equivalent knows about the S-400 (Hint: Built in Russia, it’s a surface-to-air missile system). Why is cable sports coverage so good when news commentary is so lame?

So, in review, here’s what I learned from my ordeal. First, get yourself to the hospital when you are sick to your stomach with pain near your navel or perhaps in the lower right part of your belly. Second, don’t watch anything on television that produces that exact same symptoms.