It was therefore a potential catastrophe when Lucy fell ill in Moscow with only her own knowledge of Russian to help her. Terrified of being abandoned in a Russian hospital, she told no one how ill she was feeling; she ate nothing and clutched her stomach for ten days. When she arrived home, she was too ill with a high fever and excruciating abdominal pain to go anywhere except straight to bed. The doctor came and diagnosed acute appendicitis. So there we were again – walking the all-too-familiar corridors of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, sitting on the same plastic chairs, though for a dangerously inflamed appendix rather than a dangerously obstructed respiratory tract. We were told the next day, when Lucy was already recovering, that she was very lucky not to have had a burst appendix in Moscow.
— Travelling to Infinity (Jane Hawking), Loc. 5822–7