Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Jul. 14th, 2010 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseThe Body in Question was a limited run PBS series in the early 1980s. Jonathan Miller, one of the Beyond the Fringe crowd and an MD, put together and hosted it. He showed things like how hypoxia affected the brain and really put forward the leading edge (for the early 1980s) of medical research into how the human body worked.
The final episode was a little different. It began on a man who was at a party and feeling a little "off" and by the end of it had shown an appendectomy.
About a month after it aired, I bought the book that linked to the series, and took it with me when I went to drama school at 22.
In late 1988 while living in Belgium, I had a stitch in my side after my usual weekend walk in the park (about three miles total). I thought nothing of it on Saturday. When I was sick on Saturday night, I still thought nothing of it -- although it was years before I could eat artichoke again and I'm even now a little iffy on eggplant. Monday morning, I woke up, walked to my bookcase in pain, and found the book. Half an hour later, I was on the Metro to the hospital. The gentleman behind me who thought I would be nice and let him skip ahead because his little boy wasn't feeling well was shocked when I told him, "No." When I got to the receptionist's desk, I said, "I hope you speak English. Appendicitis."
I was seen in under ten minutes, and the intern who helped me said the only reason it had taken that long was because they were trying to find someone who spoke English to help me. I was on the table within an hour and a half -- and the only reason it took that long was because they'd lost the first X-ray and had to take another.
So, yes, my favorite series finale is the one for The Body in Question. It saved my life.
The final episode was a little different. It began on a man who was at a party and feeling a little "off" and by the end of it had shown an appendectomy.
About a month after it aired, I bought the book that linked to the series, and took it with me when I went to drama school at 22.
In late 1988 while living in Belgium, I had a stitch in my side after my usual weekend walk in the park (about three miles total). I thought nothing of it on Saturday. When I was sick on Saturday night, I still thought nothing of it -- although it was years before I could eat artichoke again and I'm even now a little iffy on eggplant. Monday morning, I woke up, walked to my bookcase in pain, and found the book. Half an hour later, I was on the Metro to the hospital. The gentleman behind me who thought I would be nice and let him skip ahead because his little boy wasn't feeling well was shocked when I told him, "No." When I got to the receptionist's desk, I said, "I hope you speak English. Appendicitis."
I was seen in under ten minutes, and the intern who helped me said the only reason it had taken that long was because they were trying to find someone who spoke English to help me. I was on the table within an hour and a half -- and the only reason it took that long was because they'd lost the first X-ray and had to take another.
So, yes, my favorite series finale is the one for The Body in Question. It saved my life.
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Date: 2010-07-15 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 10:33 pm (UTC)There are worse ways to lose your appendix.