In case you were wondering

I am now sans tonsil and I feel like I whole new person!

Ok so that's a lie. I feel exactly the same - besides the fact that I'm constantly hungry. I don't know that I was really mentally prepared to have surgery last week. For some reason I kept comparing having my tonsils out to having my wisdom teeth out, which was no big deal for me. I thought it would just be a quick thing that I would be able to recover from in a couple days, despite the fact that my doctor said I'd be down for about two weeks (I still think that's a little extreme). But Thursday morning after donning that lovely purple hospital gown, getting an IV shoved into my hand, and being wheeled into the operating room and parked under those blinding white lights like you see in the movies, I finally realized...whoa, this is like, real surgery.  The thought probably should have frightened me, but instead it made me feel...adult and official in a morbid kind of way.  I dunno.

So I'm laying on the bed under those infernal lights in the OR and the anesthesiologist comes in to prepare me to be knocked out.  He's asking me all these questions about where I went to high school and what I'm doing with my life now that I'm getting old - you know, the kind of questions you ask a person that you run into at a random party that you haven't talked to (and would have rather kept it that way) in five years.  I'm politely answering his questions, laughing when appropriate, all the while thinking to myself ...this is really awkward - laying on this table in the buff covered by this paper thin robe making small talk with a man with a scrawny face and googly eyes who is just waiting to shoot some drugs into me so these strangers can do unspeakable things to my precious throat... While I'm thinking all these things, it randomly comes up that he has a son in China.  

"Oh cool," I pipe up, "I just went there." 

"Oh yeah?!  My son just loves it there!  What were you there for?"

"I was just a volunteer english teach... "

Mid-answer, this guy plops the oxygen mask right on my face, you know like when you're at the dentist and he asks you a question then sticks his fingers down your throat?  Kinda like that.  I should have figured that small talk time was over at this point, but for some reason I kept trying to answer his question.  So I continue my sentence...ensue awkwardness...

"...er for a few months over there. "

Mr. A, eyes wide as he realizes I am still talking to him, "Oh wait, what?  Were you sayin' somethin' there squirt?  Oh you were teaching English!  What part of China were you in?"

"It was in southern China near... " down comes the mask...

"Oh wait, what?  Shoot I keep cuttin' ya off now don't I?  Ho ho ho, silly me."

Is this guy serious?  I'm thinking to myself.  Just give me the drugs and let's get this show on the road already.  If I wanted unpleasant conversation I would have gone to that girl's party last night...

"Well I guess it's about time we put ya out so Dr. Stoker here can do his business, eh?"

Yes please.

The last thing I remember before going under was hearing crazy Mr. A. yelling, "Doh, there she goes!  GO DARTS!!  GO DARTS!!  WOO HOO!!"  Like I was some wild, die hard Darts (my high school mascot.  Incidentally his other son is a Lancer, our rivals.) fan that needed a little high school football game nostalgia before entering dream land.  Once again, I dunno.

Anyway, that's pretty much where the eventfulness ends.  I woke up after about a half hour in the operating room, stayed a couple hours in the hospital and have since been sitting on my couch rotting away.  The first couple days I felt great.  I was eating solid food, sleeping 16 hours a day and loving life.  The pain has escalated a little in the past couple days because apparently the scabs are starting to fall off now.  Gross, I know.  But I have yet to take any pain medication (liquid Lortab?  Pssssh, who needs it) and I'm told things should start looking up here in the next few days.  So yeah, I guess getting my tonsils out really hasn't been that big of a deal.  It's been relatively pleasant, in fact.  Ridiculousness in the hospital, a week off work and never getting strep again?  I'll drink to that.