Dude, where are my tonsils?

Leigh asked for this tale. This saga. It isn’t very funny.

As a kid, I think I was borderline between needing to get my tonsils out and the doctor just wanting to leave them be. I got strep throat enough that I could diagnose it myself immediately, and when I did my tonsils mightily swelled. But I grew up at the time when they were coming off that big tonsil-removal phase, and were then thinking that they should try to keep them in as often as possible. So on I went, with tonsils in place.

By the time I got to college, I was probably only getting sick with strep or tonsillitis about 1-2 times a year. But the sick got worse. One time, I went to bed and apparently my fever came on full force while I was sleeping. I had these horrible, nightmarish dreams about The Mists of Avalon, which I was reading at the time. I was standing in a field holding a sword up toward the sky and speaking in a language I don’t even know (weird that my fevered brain makes up languages... does that make me brilliant, or just totally insane?) and it was struck by lightning, and I kept yelling something up to the sky. And I would wake up and turn over or go get water, and go back to sleep and this dream would just keep happening over and over, and I wanted to make it stop but it would come right back the minute I dozed off. I woke up in the morning and went downstairs, where my whole family was. (No idea why—must have been a holiday or something.)

As soon as I got down the stairs, I ran to the bathroom and threw up, then walked out and passed out in the middle of the living room, just as my sister was saying I looked a little “green.” This became my new tonsillitis-induced fever habit. It was a Sunday and I had to leave for college the next day, so I get into the back of my own car, leaving the driving to my friend who only had a permit, and telling another person I was driving back that he was the driver in charge of things that day. (Funny I didn’t let the one with a license drive; I guess it was all those stories about him speeding his station wagon through Ossining at 80 miles an hour that deterred me.) I was sitting in the backseat with some guy I think I never met before but was driving back as a favor. So there I am, crammed in with all of our stuff and a fucking gerbil underneath my feet because some girl asked the permit boy if he could take it and I am a big sucker who agreed before realizing it would be ME put out by the thing. I am confused and half-delirious, sucking down Thera -flu from a travel mug and looking like death while this poor guy who just wanted to get back to school is stuck in the backseat with disgustingly sick me for 5½ hours. We stopped at a rest area and although I didn’t see myself, I know it couldn’t have been good because all 3 of the guys with me kept asking me if I was ok. I do know I kept zoning out and just staring while they were talking.

I slept most of the ride, waking up just to see permit boy speeding through the snow and tried screaming at him that he had to slow down and my car sucked in the snow, but my voice wouldn’t raise itself above an angry whisper. (He did slow down, right after telling me I had to stop freaking out and then skidded across the lane almost into the guard rail. Don’t we already know that I am always right??)

Anyway, this was just one of the times when tonsillitis came on like that, and I’d wake up feeling like death. Last year, I came down with tonsillitis again and it wouldn’t go away after 2 rounds of antibiotics. So they had to put me on another round and steroids. Now that was an experience. I only had to take thep rednisone for a few days, but holy crap! That shit messes with your mind! I would come to work and when someone brought me something to do, it would prompt me to just get ridiculously angry. So I would be like “why the FUCK do I have to do THIS? GOD!” Then in 2 minutes I’d feel so bad, I’d start crying. Then in another 2 minutes, I’d think it was all so silly and just laugh maniacally. I can’t have things messing with my emotions like that! I am already too messed up! I went to cut my avocado for lunch and realized that I didn’t have a knife in my drawer, which I thought I did. So I stared at it, and then cried. Meanwhile, there are knives in the kitchen. But I had the “’roid rage” so I couldn’t relax.

So my tonsils would go down enough that I could kind of breath again, but not ever did they go down to normal. It was like they were constantly on the verge of being like, “and you have tonsillitis...NOW! No, NOW!”

Between 1 of the rounds of antibiotics I went to an ENT who told me I needed to take Zyrtec. He thought that was perhaps why my throat was red. I couldn’t even really respond to that. It made me really angry. Not that there is anything wrong with taking Zyrtec, but I am really anti-medicating every damn thing without really even looking into what it is, and didn’t need Zyrtec! (This was also the guy who when I opened my mouth and said, “Ahh !” responded with “oh my! What big tonsils you have!” It was very fairy tale.) I told him I wanted to get my tonsils out, and he said that a the ripe old age of 26, I was “a bit old” for that kind of procedure and it would be horrible and painful. I pointed out the whole “I can’t breathe, when I go to sleep I have tonsil-induced apnea because they block my air passages, and my voice is new and NOT improved.” He didn’t buy it!

I“got better” after the 3 antibiotics and steroids, and then came down with tonsillitis again within about a month. Which I guess means that I was never really better. I had yet another round of antibiotics and steroids.

I went to my primary care doctor, who is also anti-medication. He was very pro-tonsil removal, and kept telling me that I had to get better so they could take the tonsils out.
Like I didn’t already want that?? Anyway, at this point I was being bounced between my doctor, my allergist, and Mr. “thinks-Diane-is-old” ENT.

So finally, finally, I found a new ENT. I went in and did the “AHH!” thing, and he looked in for 2 seconds and said, “You need to get your tonsils out!” They weren’t even infected at this point, so I knew I had found my match.

(Leigh can back me on what they looked like when they got infected—it was a really unpretty scene in there. When that happened, even the other ENT leaned towards removal. But when they shrank back a big I got a lot of “ehh, you’re old, do you really want to?” Stupid doctors.)

I scheduled my surgery for 2 weeks after my medications ended, and hoped and prayed I didn’t get sick. The doctor said you were supposed to be well and off medicine for 4 weeks, but that because of my jaded tonsil past, they were pushing it. (Hooray!)

The place was weird. You walked yourself up to the surgery room, carrying your own IV bag, and wearing that giant puffy head cover. I got myself into the bed, and when they strapped down my arms I went, “Woah, ok. I’m not as OK with this now”and they immediately started the drugs. So I started laughing and going, “It’s so funny to be here. There are a lot of people here! I feel like I’m on TV!”

Then I woke up hysterically crying (someone doesn’t do so well with anesthesia and this is her reaction all the time) and the nurse was really mean to me! I was freezing cold, probably because of the insanely low blood pressure I had. So I asked for more and more blankets, and then when I finally started to feel better, I asked her to take them off. She went “YOU were the one who wanted them?! Can you remember that?” Meanwhile, post-tonsillectomy voice isn’t all that menacing, so when I went, “Yeah!” and wanted to be rude, it came out as a pained, raspy grunt.

I also flip out after surgery that I need to get out of there. The anesthesia makes me feel totally panicked, and I asked when I could go. They made me drink a glass of water, and then said I could get up and get dressed. As soon as I moved, I felt really nauseated. I held my stomach so the nurse came back and went “oh, nauseous now? Why didn’t you tell me when your IV was still in?! Well, now I can’t do anything for you. And I won’t let you throw up in the car with your sister, because she will FLIP OUT. It will be all brown and gross from the blood you swallowed during surgery, so you better do it here.” Although her description made me want to vomit even more, I am one stubborn wench. So I sat down and told myself throwing up was not an option, and we were going home. The nausea passed.

The recovery really did suck. I sounded like a hearing impaired person and sucked down my liquid hydrocodone every 4 hours to the minute. It did take a week and a half to feel better, but now I feel AMAZINGLY better.

Anyway, turns out my surgery was supposed to only be about 45 minutes maximum,
and it took 2 hours. I asked the doctor at the post-op about that, and he said that my tonsils were “really gross.” Apparently from the infections, they were all necrotic tissue (ewwwww!) and not only were they so huge that he had a hard time working around them, but when he tried to cut into them, they just “disintegrated” so it was slow work.
This also means that nobody told me how much my tonsils weighed after the surgery, which my allergist said they should. Hmph. Too bad I couldn’t take the disgusting pieces and bring them back to that first ENT and say, “I call my ‘heartburn’ dead tissue bits. Here you go!”