Surprise discovery: I had my appendix removed and no one told me - opinion

I had my appendix removed, and no one frickin’ told me.That was one of the surprise discoveries I made when my surgeon sent me the pathology report from the bowel surgery I had done at the end of the summer.While the appendix does serve some purpose (it’s rich in immune cells that help fight off germs), it’s not essential. Still, you would have thought my doctors would have at least mentioned it.I learned a lot from that pathology report about the state of my disease.First, the Crohn’s disease I’ve had since I was 12 was a lot worse than I’d understood. In addition to removing 13.2 centimeters of ailing terminal ileum (this I knew about), another 14 cm. of my right colon was excised during the surgery.I also had “creeping mesenteric fat” wrapping around the bad parts of the bowel, which had adhered to my appendix. To remove the diseased part of the bowel, it was necessary to also take out this evolutionary afterthought.Arrivederci appendixWhat else did I learn? My bowel wall was 0.9 cm., about three times thicker than normal; that helped explain why food wasn’t passing through and what had caused the obstruction and pain.The good news is that, other than the nearly 30 cm.