At my first meeting with KDM in November, I mentioned that I had had an appendectomy but maintained that I had never had acute appendicitis. (I had suffered for a long time with a low-grade fever and a pain on my right side. After several months it was decided that I had a rumbling appendix and it would be best to remove it because I was of child-bearing age at the time.) This struck a chord with KDM and he went on about how very many patients he has seen who have had their appendix removed needlessly. He sounded rather angry about it and said that Belgium has the world's highest rate of appendectomies. He said the appendix should never be removed unless very acute. He said that like the tonsils it is there for a purpose.