My Morning Jacket’s guitarist learns the hard way that sometimes the show must go on—even when it shouldn’t.

I felt a sharp lightning-bolt twinge of pain in my lower right abdomen. It would only last for an instant before it was gone and forgotten. It happened once every month or so for years and I always wondered what it was.

Two summers ago, I was on tour playing guitar with Ray LaMontagne. We headlined a show in Seattle, then flew to San Francisco for a day off. I was at Sea-Tac airport and found it hard to order a pizza. But I ordered it, grabbed a water, paid for it all and then, for some reason, just walked away without my pizza. I felt off and didn’t want to talk to anyone. Surely, it was just a cold or something. The other travelers who were walking around me seemed frantic and the flight announcements sounded loud and aggravated. I couldn’t tell what the hell was happening.

We checked into our hotel, and everyone but me headed off to go see a Wilco show. That sounded super fun, and I really wanted to go too, but I just felt strange. I was still craving greasy food, so instead I went to buy a cheeseburger and brought it back to my hotel room. Eating alone, staring at the TV in my hotel room, I felt like a lonely bachelor with his microwave dinner. I fell asleep and woke up at 3 a.m. My stomach hurt so badly. “What was in that burger? It must have been raw or something.” I managed to fall back asleep and I felt pretty OK in the morning.

We rode the bus out to a show in Santa Rosa, Calif. I slept until soundcheck and then crawled back into my bunk for a nap. The show must go on: I felt terrible, but I told myself I could still play, so I headed over to catering. My pals Rocky and Amery, who were on our crew, were looking at me weirdly. I told them I felt off and pointed to my lower right abdomen. They both said, almost in unison, “You need to go to the hospital.”

Lucky for me—and this was just the beginning of my streak of luck despite being a complete idiot—there was a brand new, super nice hospital across the parking lot from the venue. I went to the ER and they ran a blood test, which came back negative for any signs of danger. But based on my level of pain, they recommended a CT scan of the area. They told me it would take a couple of hours, including waiting to get in, and, by this time, the show was set to start in 45 minutes. I could not shut off the feeling of “the show must go on.” Despite the hospital staff advising against it, I told them I was going to play the show and come back for the CT scan.

I felt decent when we started to play. It was a seated venue, and I could barely see the people in the crowd. I couldn’t feel any energy from them either way and kept thinking, “Are they enjoying this? What am I doing up here?” We played the Ouroboros album front to back, and by the time we made it to the last song, where I had to sing a lot of long notes and take deep breaths, I was in serious pain. We played a few more songs and an abbreviated encore. It’s amazing how many alarm bells I ignored, but during this show my glacier-slow mind finally came to grips with the idea that something was very wrong.

I walked offstage, and a runner took me straight back to the hospital. I got that scan and, as I feared, I had a seriously inflamed appendix. They scheduled me for surgery in a matter of hours, and Ray and the whole band came to say goodbye to me while I was laying on a gurney in a hospital gown. The show would have to go on without me.

The surgery went well, and my doctor told me that my appendicitis was “elevated,” which means close to bursting. I kept going back to that last show. “What was I thinking?”

Since I was across the country, the doctor recommended I play it safe and stay an extra couple of days. All I was dreaming about was a cup of coffee and a decent breakfast. I was on an IV for a few days for sustenance—then crushed ice, then finally I could order some liquid food. I hadn’t had anything solid in three days.

I ordered a hot tea and some water. When it came, my heart sank—a sad brown mug on a tray with a Lipton decaf teabag floating in it. What’s the point of that? I let it sit there for a while, then I reluctantly took a sip.

Right then and there, my whole body entered a state of complete bliss. The first drops hit my lips and slowly spread across my tongue, the warmth glowed and flowed down my throat. I wish I could have seen an X-ray of me drinking the tea because it felt like I could taste it in my toes. The saddest cup of tea in the world tasted like absolute heaven. I closed my eyes in satisfaction and saw stars—a whole world in a cup of tea. I started to well up a little, then drank the whole delicious hot drink.

Months later, I went to get my mail one day. There was a box from my pal Daniel Martin Moore. Inside was a picture frame, with a single Lipton decaf tea bag pinned inside like a butterfly. I see this every day when I walk into my studio and ask myself, “What is the most important thing to do today?”

This article originally appears in the December 2018 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.