I am 30 years old - I wanted to write this article quickly, so that I could start with this first sentence, because this thirty years of age will not last much longer. So, I am 30 years old and I am no stranger to pain.
When I look back on the most physically painful experiences of my life, I can pick and choose, there was endometriosis, major abdominal organ removal surgery, consequential sinus thrombosis and jawbone inflammation from a wisdom tooth surgery. Well, he got out, that's for sure, 11 surgeries in all...
I was like, what the heck am I already on 12. Come on, that one tonsillectomy is going to floor me. The first time I thought that maybe it wouldn't be such a smooth affair was when the person I told what was in store for me looked very pitying and regretted that wow and ha, at that age, well, that's something...
Then a second time when some people told their almond horror stories. There was everything, brutal haemorrhage, hospital for weeks, life-threatening complications and complications, autoimmune disease... but I just kept pushing the positive visualisation unremittingly, and when I sometimes got it wrong - yes, there are such things, psychologists are human - I put the brutal bloodbath of my brain into a TV in colour, next to the imagined optimistic sniffy vision of the future in black and white, and swapped them with the press of a button...yeah, I played a lot of games like that before I got my brain to behave like a partner during our tonsillectomy.
I had known for a long time that this was inevitable, but like a good psychologist, I was immersed in a comfortable pool of denial and procrastination, then ever shrinking and suffocating. It's true that I've gone on a major run only to check if I had any horse balm and fever pills at home, and then, after the distance was covered, I'd wait to see what would surprise me, what would be inflamed, ankle or knee?
Right or left? Place your bets... (I've written before about what running means to me, Running towards myself ) My hair was falling out in clumps, sometimes to such a frightening extent that I simply couldn't understand how I had any left on my head, I was tired... so I went to a psychologist, because as a good psychologist I know that if you have a wide range of physical symptoms you should go to a psychologist. So I did, but he told me to see a GP.
Bulk of referrals, blood tests, high inflammatory factors, goitre, thyroid, negative, gynaecology, internal medicine, abdominal ultrasound, oral surgery, negative. Ear, nose and throat... nodular tonsils. Oh dear. As an adult, that's pretty sh@t, that's all I knew about it. .
Well, it was sh@t. Not the surgery itself, not the anaesthetic - in some perverse way me and the anaesthetic are on good terms - it probably feels good to finally be completely free of that very tense, tied up, vulnerable situation. So, it's not the sh@t, it's what comes after. My Facebook posts are a testament to that. So much so that I got to this point in the hospital:
Pain, knives in my throat, choking on my own saliva, coughing and yawning, trying to choke back tears, muteness or a puppy dog voice...
Speaking of sound...
By today, so by day five I had some, I was incredibly happy to discover it. So, I have a voice again, it's just that it's not mine, I can hear it through some kind of weird filter, a bit of a UFO feeling. Also, the new equipment has proved incapable of pronouncing certain sounds. Supposedly in a few weeks (what is????,) everything will be back to normal.
You have to drink a lot.
I'm not a big drinker, the Iwatch warned me with a special app that it was time to drink water again, but you don't go to the hospital and surgery with a smartwatch on your wrist. (Well, I would have, but I was told to take it off. )Instead I got a nice little plastic hospital wristband in case I forgot my name or something...
To add to the weirdness, some of the liquid I ingested thinks it would be nice if it exited through my right nostril, tickling it in a farewell funny way, thereby provoking a sneeze from someone with a huge wound a few days fresh in their throat. Multiply it by three, like that. Yes, you read that right, water, tea, orange juice, coffee... through my nostrils. Supposedly that's normal too, so after surgery my throat is weak, a few weeks (we have??????????) and it settles down.
Yes, the coffee. It turns out that the bleeding boogeyman means I can't do about anything I like- no sports, no running, no infrared sauna for at least a month, (what have we??????) I can understand that, maybe ,(no!!!) but no coffee either, because caffeine also raises blood pressure, thus increasing the blood volume and risk of bleeding. After all, what is it to a person living on 6 coffees a day... caffeine addicts know that typical, very severe, temporal throbbing migraine headache that comes on when you don't get your "fix" at the right, usual time.
Well, no problem - the sharp surgical pain throbbing in my throat, palate, jaw and ears is preventing the migraine from even reaching my sinuses, so great. To all you migraine sufferers out there, even though you're really bored of bananas, tonsillectomies are a great temporary solution to your nagging headaches. And for my caffeine addicted almond friends, here's a word of advice: don't try to replace coffee with coke, it's caffeine, and the fizzy stuff will keep you scratching your head for weeks... and bananas, who would have thought, delicious banana smoothie...well he's no friend of ours either. The good solution is a caffeinated latte with rice, oats or coconut milk.
So no caffeine, no dairy, nothing off-limits, but here's to the placebo effect: the smell of decaffeinated coffee alone will ease a headache. But we're simple...
But ice cream. When I talked myself into having my tonsils removed, these are the three arguments I kept telling myself on the way to the operating theatre:
I will have beautiful, thick hair again
Ice cream on the back, without guilt! (strictly vegan, na)
Running faster without knee pain
Well, as we found out at the check today, the ice cream is fake. Even though it is totally dairy, sugar and gluten free, even though it is all for nothing, ice cream is contraindicated after tonsillectomy because it can make the throat cold more easily, and even then it used to be given only on the first day to stop minor bleeding, because it is cold and constricts the blood vessels. Well, a world has come crashing down on me, it was almost as traumatic as when my grandma told me when I was little that carrots would make me unable to whistle.
Anyway, the ice cream is fake, the carrots are fake, my hair is falling out more than ever from the anaesthesia, and I won't run for a month... I hope I'll be at least really fast after that...
As for ice cream, it's not the bearer of bad news that I hate, in fact.
I'm very grateful to my doctor, he's amazingly nice. It's hard for me to vote for someone I trust, especially when that person is wearing a white coat and wants to put me to sleep and b@st me with scalpels. On the one hand, the mania for control - is my life really going to be in his hands now?, - on the other hand, the many bad experiences I have heard about from myself and my patients. But when I told the surgeon before the operation about my paranoia, and he just looked at me and laughed out loud, it stole into my heart and I knew I was in good hands. Poor thing, ever since then she has endured my questions of wanting to know and understand everything, and the psychologist's p@ting with infinite patience.
And speaking of ice cream, weight loss..., I thought the ice cream diet was bullshit, and it probably is- it's supposed to produce heat, so it burns the calories you take in- the theory goes, so it's bullshit, but the thing is- before I say bullshit again, I'll just say it- I'm losing weight at a really crazy rate on my ice cream diet.
I've lost 1 kilo a day so far, which I'm not happy about, because I've worked a lot for muscles that are now rubbish and I don't like the bum bag in the mirror. No problem, it will come back soon. I'll work out:-) And it's probably not the ice cream, it's the fact that I can't force anything else down my throat for the time being.
Either it stings, it bites, it gives me a coughing fit, or I just feel like I could go but it's not recommended after a tummy ache. Today my mate Balázs cooked and pureed cauliflower, there is hope.
It's been 5 days since the surgery, I can't say I'm over the hard part yet, the doc says it's around day 7-9. I, who was very proud to proclaim that I never took painkillers, well what can I say, I'm taking them now... although I can get by with less than the recommended amount, I'm seeing my Inner Healer a lot, and I'm seeing a lot of positive visualisation of the tissues skillfully and quickly reassembling and things are settling nicely. I also push myself in a really psychological way, I don't use the word pain in deep relaxation for example, instead I make up words like this: just the sense of the work of the wound healing.
I have a good laugh at that, but the laughter hurts, so I soon stop the merriment.
The night is the worst, and as I write this long article, by the end of it I feel my head, my face, my jaw, my jaw is out of place, even my eyes and ears are throbbing, and as I open my mouth to tell the dog, who is obviously about to go for a walk, to be patient - it's like a knife being plunged into my throat, jaw, jawbone.
I touch my face, press my palm against it, hope it will get better soon, wipe away the tears that have fallen, and just mutter to myself, "Shit, shit, shit. I hope to have really, really nice thick hair and run really, really fast without knee pain.
I would like to thank the people who are my family instead of my family in this challenging situation.
Thank you to Anita, who took the day off, came to see me at dawn on the day of the operation so that my little boy would not have to go to the nursery, which he hates. After taking him to nursery, she came to see me in the hospital, waited through the surgery, first thing I saw when I woke up was her grinning face. I couldn't speak, but he sat by my bedside all day without a word, just so I wouldn't be alone. She held my head while I coughed up blood and helped me decide if it was now a laceration and we should call the doctor or just surgical discharge and still in the okay category. For 3 days while I was in the hospital, he moved in with me, fed my cat, walked my dog, took my dog for a run.
On my arrival home, I was greeted by such a nice order, which there is no way I would have done in the nervous moments before the surgery:-) The first night she slept with me to make me feel safe, because I was afraid of the dreaded bogeyman of tonsillectomy, the haemorrhage.
I didn't feel like talking, I couldn't, I just curled up on my bed in pain, and she, realizing that she could do the most for me, quietly did things for me around the house and with the animals, and then she also quietly stayed up with me until I could fall asleep.
To my good friend Balázs, who drove me to the hospital at the crack of dawn and came up from the countryside, interrupting his busy schedule to bring me home. To take me for a check-up, and a check-up of the check-up of the check-up.
And to do the shopping, and to cook soup and mash cauliflower, because he doesn't want me to lose any more weight and I need something to eat. To vacuum me because I'm not allowed to bend over and lift, but I get a brain f@ck if the cushions aren't smooth on the carpets:-)), to discipline the cat, walk the dog, have a voice instead of mine when the phone rings, and most of all to reassure me for the thousandth time that it won't always be this sh@t.
To my sleepy friend, who - I think no one has ever done this for me except my grandmother - prayed for me to have a successful surgery, and many others. Although I don't consider myself religious in the traditional sense of the word, knowing that someone is praying for me is a heart-warming feeling.
Thank you to my patients for the countless kind messages, and for the fact that I can't stay here mourning my tonsils for long just because of them, as I have to be back in top form next week, which is a great boost for my recovery!
And thank you to everyone who just stopped by with a paleo ice cream, a magazine, a hug, everyone who knew that bed rest is a big ordeal for the ever-moving Nora, and thank you, Adi, for teaching us how to talk without sound, messaging each other while throwing our backs against each other on the couch.
Nóra Árvai
psychologist, perinatal counsellor, specialist writer, chronic care psychologist
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