Everything was going beautifully until that fateful evening when I got very hungry and the only thing within reach was a couple of innocent-looking apples.

My recovery had actually been going remarkably well—much better than after my first surgery. Last time, my lower back hurt constantly. I spent hours with a hot water bottle pressed against it and even longer standing in steaming hot showers, trying to loosen everything up while waiting for the pain medication to kick in. It also took a while to find the right combination of tablets and injections. This time was different. Surgery was on Wednesday, by Friday I felt pretty good, and by Sunday I was already working and looking forward to going home. To be safe, we decided to wait until Wednesday before discharging me.

And then… a dietary mistake happened.

The problem was that I felt too good. Somewhere along the way, I conveniently forgot that I had also lost my appendix and that the rest of my digestive system might be a little irritated and in need of recovery time. In hospital, meals arrive three times a day. Breakfast and dinner are usually bread, cheese, ham, butter, sometimes a spread. I’m a grown woman and I get hungry, so I usually eat everything. Lunch is another story. I mostly focus on the meat and vegetables because the rest rarely appeals to me. What I know now is that I should save the bread for emergencies—or buy extra from the bakery next door.

Unfortunately, on the evening before my discharge, there was nothing left in my room except apples. And I was starving.

Now let me share another family secret. At home, my mum and I eat apples whole. Core included. We leave the stem, obviously. Why? No idea. That’s just how we’ve always done it. So I ate two apples. Everything except the stems.

Around two in the morning, my stomach started complaining. By breakfast, I felt awful. I took one bite of a bread roll and couldn’t manage anything else. One of the nurses looked at me and asked whether I was really serious about going home because I certainly didn’t look ready to be discharged. She added that she’d rather not see me back the next day. I told her it was probably just the apples and that I’d be fine. Needless to say, I failed to mention the part about eating the cores. I’ve been doing it my entire life, and I wasn’t about to embarrass myself now.

When I got home, I still looked relatively normal at lunchtime. But hour by hour things got worse. Abdominal cramps. Acid and stomach contents creeping back up into my throat. Back pain. My parents kept asking whether I wanted to go back to the hospital.

“They told me to come back if I start vomiting, bleeding, or running a fever,” I insisted. “None of that is happening, so I don’t want them thinking I’m a drama queen.”

The truth was that I wasn’t entirely convinced myself.

Then things got worse. Much worse.

Eventually, I asked my dad to drive me back, just to be safe. That was when the real fun began. I nearly fainted in the bathroom. Fortunately, my mum rescued me with a cold wet cloth and held me upright. At that point, I couldn’t imagine making it to the car, but I had to. My parents quickly packed a bag, Mum prepared a bucket and another cold cloth, and then they escorted me outside. I kept repeating the same sentence to myself: Just get to the car.

My mother couldn’t resist pointing out that with a headscarf and a bucket in my hand, I looked exactly like a cleaner on her way to work. Priorities.

Dad drove through the housing estate with impressive determination, which meant the bucket quickly became extremely useful. Vomiting with fresh abdominal incisions is not an experience I recommend. I was wearing my favorite sweatshirt with a loose funnel neck and naturally managed to throw up into that too. Dad parked directly outside the emergency entrance. First, he peeled me out of the vomit-covered sweatshirt, and then he escorted me inside.

The nurses immediately took over and wheeled me to see the doctor. I wanted to be brave. I really did. But I felt terrible. People say trapped gas can sometimes mimic the symptoms of a heart attack. This felt similar. The pain came in waves. The doctor looked puzzled because if something serious had gone wrong surgically, the pain wouldn’t normally come and go the way mine did.

Eventually, I admitted that I’d eaten apples.

“Apples aren’t ideal right after surgery,” he said, “but they wouldn’t normally cause this.”

Then I confessed that I’d eaten the cores as well.

The doctor stared at me.

“And you left the stems?”

The look on his face changed slightly.

“We don’t eat those.”

“Well, that’s something.”

The orderly wheeled me back to the postoperative ward. In fact, they put me back into exactly the same room I’d just left, almost as if they’d known I’d be returning a few hours later. I threw up one more time after arriving. Those hospital sick bowls are surprisingly elegant and surprisingly small. They also have limited capacity. My pajamas paid the price.

After cleaning myself up, I crawled back into bed. The cramps were still intense, but definitely improving. They took blood and urine samples and gave me a fairly powerful injection. Soon afterwards, the letters on my phone started becoming blurry. At first, holding the screen farther away solved the problem. A little later, I couldn’t read it at any distance. Apparently that’s a perfectly normal side effect. The important thing was that my abdomen finally relaxed and I was able to sleep.

The surgeon who had operated on me came to check on me as well. He was very kind. He never called me an idiot. He simply referred to the entire episode as a “dietary mistake.” And I think we’ll stick with that terminology.

The next day I was allowed only applesauce, mashed potatoes, and IV fluids. The morning after that, breakfast arrived with an apple. The nurse immediately took it away.

“I don’t trust you with this anymore,” she said.

Fair enough.

Things are much better now. What’s left is mostly fatigue and some mild cramps after eating. Hopefully, I’ll be heading home again soon. This particular rodeo was entirely self-inflicted. Let’s hope my brain has finally rejoined the conversation and that from here on, things get considerably less exciting.