Life Without Tonsils
Ahh, summertime is finally here, and while most college kids begin their summers with a trip to the beach or a big reunion with their high school friends, I decide to 'cut' to the chase (no pun intended) and have a much needed and overdue tonsilectomy 2 days after my last exam.
Here...I'll start from the beginning. Over the past 5 years or so, I've had tonsilitis probably 4 or 5 times a year, mostly during winter, but occasionally during one of the other seasons as well. My tonsils swell up to where there's almost no air passage through my mouth and basically they just make my life miserable for about a week. Time after time, I'd visit the doctor, and time after time I'd get the same antibiotic. Finally, over this past Christmas break, I had tonsilitis and step throat all within a 2 week period and decided this just couldn't happen anymore. It took some persuading, but finally I convinced the doctor to remove them once and for all. (He said that usually the procedure is more complicated the older the patient is, but I didn't care at this point). So, we set the surgery date for right after my last exam!
The next few months passed without too much thought about getting my tonsils taken out. I finished up the semester and all that jazz. Then about a week or so ago, I began really thinking about what was going to happen: I was going to be put to sleep and someone was going to cut a part of my body out of my mouth. Yeah...I basically started to freak out! I went online and researched the different methods they use for a tonsilectomy including all of the instruments and cautionary procedures. My advice: don't ever research too closely the kind of surgery you'll be getting. Bad idea on my part, especially when I found out that 1 in every 16,000 people die from a tonsilectomy.
Anyway, the morning of the surgery came. I got throught it without any major problems. Cried a little, slept a lot, and now I'm in the recovery process. I've watched more movies in the past 3 days than I have in the past 6 months. Here are my reviews:
-Because I Said So: great mother/daughter comedy (4 stars)
-Catch and Release: decent chick flick, but nothing great (2 stars)
-The Last King of Scotland: must see historical fiction movie (5 stars)
-Deja Vu: I've seen better Denzel Washington movies (3 stars)
-Children of Men: still don't know what happened in that movie (1 star)
-Candy: depressing, but Heath Ledger is still hott (2.5 stars)
-The Holiday: SO CUTE, even guys should see this one (5 stars)
So besides movies and books, I haven't really had much of a summer yet. It hurts to use my mouth in any way, so my mom's done a good job of picking up on my sign language. I'm already sick of applesauce and pudding. (Yes, I know, the vanilla pudding snack packs are so 2nd grade, but hey...it's about all I can eat.) Hopefully after another week or so of recovery, I'll be back to normal. The first thing I'm going to do when my tonsils (or lack thereof) are all better....is scream at the top of my lungs! (And then eat...a lot!)