SCG: I was told I needed my tonsils removed when I was six years old. I didn't get around to it until I was 28. It was a very miserable experience....I hope yours is not as bad. I went to an ENT and told him I needed my tonsils out. He said:" Well, we don't really do that anymore. Then he looked in my throat.......he said : "Ummmmmn, but yeah....those need to come out! How have you managed to stay alive with those?"
The truth is....I almost hadn't. For so many years, they would put me on antibiotics the infection would subside....(at which point I was supposed to schedule surgery and have them removed). I would get to feeling fine, and my tonsils weren't bothering me, so I just never got around to the surgery.
Then one day they put me in the hospital. They had swollen up so bad that I couldn't eat, drink, or talk.....just a little more and I wouldn't have been able to breathe. They were the size of golf balls and the space between was so small you couldn't have stuck a #2 pencil in past the lead. I decided I couldn't put it off anymore, so as soon as the infection was down a bit....I was in to see that ENT specialist.
A few other things: The modern way to remove them is with lasers.....mine were so large, it wasn't an option, they cut them out and stitched me up. They put me on morphine...no really, ....not that other stuff....honest to goodness morphine. They would come in and stick me in the butt....I would spend 15 min. trying to figure out what was on TV....I would look at the guide.....realize I needed to know what time it was, and look at the clock on the wall....then look back at the TV guide....and realize I needed to know what time it was....(I had already forgot) .....so I would look at the clock..........This would go on for around 15 mins. until I would pass out.....
I would wake up about 3 and a half hours later in excruciating pain until they came in and hit me in the butt....then ....no pain really, but 15 mins. of clock/ TV guide fun....for days.....
I won't go into the details of how and why I left the hospital when I did but it was too soon....and I was downing hydrocodone like they were M&M's....and they weren't working....I turned to supplementing them with a lot of beer and that helped some. Without the massive pain....such a combination would have made me very high....but I was sober .
I hope your experience is better....but after that, after all the years of being sick every couple of months, I enjoyed being in good health for years. My biggest regret was waiting so long to do it.
