Out Came Those Tonsils

And, so it was…….a warm day in April and there I was in a hospital bed in the next town over waiting for the doctor to come in for me.

“Good morning!  How are we feeling this morning?” asked the doctor. He was a new doctor and he wasn’t smiling and calling me young lady like Dr. C. did. I wasn’t sure I was going to trust this man to take out my tonsils.  I didn’t say a word. I hadn’t decided whether or not I was going to like this man.

I was in a big room and in another bed on the other side of the room was a boy about my age. Apparently, his tonsils were poisoning his system just like Dr. C. said mine were.

“And, how are you doing, young man?” inquired this new doctor.  The boy just looked at him and, like me, didn’t say a word.  The nurses came for the boy first. She was pushing this bed on rollers.

“Just climb over on this gurney”, she said to the boy, “I’m gonna roll you down the hall to the operating room.”

“I don’t want to ride on that thing.  I’ll just walk.”  And, he promptly jumped down off his bed and started striding across the room toward the door.  He must have felt the cold air on his little behind after a few steps because he hadn’t gotten to  the door until he reached his short little arm around clutching where his pants had been before they had put that awful split tailed gown on him.  He stopped; bewildered and still clutching his gown behind him, he began to walk slowly back toward the table.

“I guess I’ll ride after all”, he said, “if somebody would help me up on this thing.”

Next, it was my turn. The ride to the operating room was scary. I didn’t like the nurses with masks on their faces. I didn’t like the big lights but most of all, I didn’t like the smell.  The nurses lifted me gently over onto the operating table; smiling and talking all the while. The next thing I knew, they were putting this big black mask over my nose and mouth and telling me to take a deep breath.  I don’t know how they expected me to breath. That stuff smelled awful and I wasn’t about the breath it.  I wanted down off that table right then and I didn’t care who knew it.  As I began to struggle, the nurses gently took my hands and held them to my sides and held the black mask on my nose and mouth.  Soon my struggling began to subside.

The next thing I knew I was dreaming I was in this sunny pasture and there were these little rabbits all driving these funny little cars ever so fast and ever so carelessly around and around and up and down until I was so dizzy I could watch them no longer.

When I woke in my room, my mother and daddy were there.  I opened my eyes and they were the first persons I saw.

“How are you doing, Sweetheart?” My Daddy asked.  I tried to answer him but nothing would come out. My throat hurt more than it had ever been before. I couldn’t talk……..I couldn’t swallow. I was ruined and I just knew I would never be the same again. And, to this day, every time I use finger nail polish remover, the smell takes me back to the smell of that ether in the big black mask the nurses held over my nose.

All of us I think, have things happen to us that take us back to something in our past. We see someone who reminds us of someone we knew years ago.  Or, we smell a distinct odor , like I did, that remind them of a place.

“God gave us roses so we can have memories in December,” is a quote I have often heard.  I think that means that we can have the memory of the beauty and the scent of roses when December comes to cheer us up when the weather is bleak.    When we have bad things happen, we can go back to the good memories God has placed in our memory bank and those will get us through the bad times.

“Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God’s Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.” Philippians 1:3-6 The Message