Three Out of Three Doctors Agree

I had been putting it off, no question about it. The standard excuse, I am too busy. But the truth was, I was scared. One of the things that I was doing during the past few weeks was getting all my doctors appointments out of the way while my health insurance was still paid for my old employer. I had until July 6th before I had to cough up a whopping $654 a month to pay for my COBRA-- my health insurance--thanks to the info in my manila folder. At each doctor's appointment, they all said the same thing--isn't it time to get your tonsils out, we've been telling you to do it for the past five years.



My visions of tonsillectomies are viewed through the misty cloudy distance of time. My sister was three, I was five, and it was my job to get her the popsicles from the freezer. As tempted as I was to get one for myself, I never succumbed--in my halo-guided memory. I'm sure I sneaked one, she didn't like the green ones, I didn't like the red ones, so we evened it out. Oops, Mom if you're reading this, my sister ate them all.

How was I going to do this? Could I possibly train Marlowe to get the popsicles out of the freezer? I am sure he would if he could. My ENT who was going to do the surgery said that I would have to have someone stay with me for at least two weeks while I was recovering. Why, I asked? In case I started bleeding during the recovery phase or my throat started to swell up and I couldn't breathe. As if I wasn't nervous enough, now I had to start thinking about bleeding and not breathing! I thought about going to my other sister's in San Diego to recover, but the doctor wanted me near by so he could follow me closely. Why?, again I asked. Because red-heads have a tendency to bleed more. Great, thanks grandpa, and all my uncles, and great-grandfathers, and well, my whole entire family! What I always took to be a purely superficial feature had medical consequences. Doctors offices are notoriously well air-conditioned to begin with, but I was down right shivering by the time I left the consultation. I was only nervous before talking to my doctor, now I was scared.

I called my mom later that day, Monday. She said she would be able to rearrange her travel plans to be here to take care of me. I didn't know what else to do. And as my mom said, who better to rake care of you than your mom. Until the doctor said that someone needed to physically be in the house with me, I had my nephew, my sister, and some friends on stand-by. Requiring someone to be with me at all times changed the whole plan. Now, I have to get the spare bedroom guest ready. I have to go into "a guest is coming to visit" mode.

In a strange way, I think having something to do, something to focus on has helped relieve some of my anxiety of the upcoming surgery. Which is not to say I am not nervous. I wish I was blissfully ignorant of everything that could go wrong. In making my decision to have the surgery, I talked to some friends who had it done. They told me some of their experiences--watch out for day ten, that's when you start to fell better and you push yourself too hard. Another told me her daughter had it done and had no problems at all. I know that there are extremes and outliers. I have always fallen in that 1% category of something going wrong.

But this time I feel optimistic. I don't have to rush back to work. I can take my time getting better. I will have someone to take care of me and better yet, take Marlowe on his walks. I know that I will feel better for having it done. I can sacrifice short-term discomfort for long term health gain.

Now, back to cleaning house...my mother's coming! Silent Scream!!

© pranaknits