Re: Early Miracle Cures-tonsils

07/18/13 - posted by jb

I think tonsilectomies where the bread and butter of ENTs before nose jobs became more popular and paid for many an exotic vacation at the cost of leaving we kids with less immunity to polio. The vaccines came along just in time since the reasons they leave them in now is for polio protection. As for adenoids...these are like sweetbreads, does anyone really know what they are?

I had my tonsils out at the old St. Mary's Hospital at the age of three and at the same time as my sister who was a year older. Maybe we got a package deal, who knows? In any case, when they were taking us upstairs and introduced us to the nurse in charge of our care, they said "and here is Sister Whatsername." I retorted "no she's not...Debby is."

Ding...the fight was on! I got up to pee so many times that they finally tied me in my bed and put bars over the top. Next morning was the long ride on our backs down green hallways and into the Frankensteinian O.R. and as Paul retells...the mask over my mouth and nose and the drip which at the time was either chloroform or ether...one carcinogenic, the other is what torched Richard Pryor.

But the biggest trauma was the ice cream lie! Afterwards, you can have ALL the ice cream you can eat. I don't think I could eat for 3 days my throat was so sore and even the thought of ice cream was painful. I don't recall my bris, but it had to be better than this experience.

You know, I haven't recalled the trauma of this event for many, many years and it's payback time...I'm going to go have some chocolate gelato...3 scoops!

Cheers,
jb