Tonsil Removal and Rebirth – Growing Up in Dublin, Texas

I do not remember being sick and in the hospital at all except for when I had my Tonsils taken out. It was around Christmas Time when I was six or seven. I remember it was hard for me to swallow and when I did it felt someone was in my throat and taking sandpaper to the back of it, daring me to swallow again. I remember going into the hospital there in Dublin, and everything smelled funny.

That hygienic smell everywhere, and everyone was dressed in white, and scurrying back and forth with clipboards, and carts of medicine and some sort of silver dome things. When I think about it now where did idea for these hats come from and who thought nurses having to wear such things.

I had remember my Mom’s, and how it looked like a flat piece of white cardboard, which when folded up and buttoned to made a hat of sorts. I remember doing it when she was not around, it was kinda like a flat puzzle easily solved. When she was getting ready for work, she would always solve the puzzle with the greatest of easy, almost slide of hand like magic, and would then take a hairpin or two and pin it to her carefully rolled up hair. To complete her working ware she also wore a white dress, white stockings, and white shoes.

It was not only the nurses running and scurrying around in white but the doctors also, they all had these white robes or jacket like wear. Every now and then I would see these guys and gals running by in light green pants and shirts with a green thing on their heads and some sort of breathing thing hanging around their necks. Crazy and strange place for a kid. I felt safe because I knew my Mom was one of these aliens.

My room contained the same smell, and colors, but the neatest thing was the bed. It had this controller which allowed you to raise it up and down, it was high, and it had railings so you would not fall off. i finally found out what those silver dome things were that were on the carts. They covered the plates which had us inmates food on them. The table that was beside my bed was kinda neat too, as it also would roll under the bed with its top above the bed forming a table for the silver domed plates to be placed. After receiving my first meal, I felt a little better of this place of clean smells surrounded by white and green. The nurse came in, raised the table and rolled it in and over the bed, back to her cart and after checking the card number removed a silver dome place for me setting it on my table. when she removed the dome to my surprise was a huge block of Red Cherry flavored Jello.

That evening another wonderful surprise from under the dome, vanilla ice cream with chocolate, this place knows what little boys like.

The next morning I began to think it was all a big trick to soften me up and put me off guard for the men and gals in green. The Doctor came in first and stuck the flat piece of wood in my mouth and at the same time said, “Ahhha …” to get me to do the same, I obliged him. After it seemed like a long while Mom came in with the green clad men, She told me everything would be alright as they placed me on the rolling bed and pulled up the safety railings on each side, covered me and we were off to the operating room. Seemed like we were rolling along the halls of that Hospital forever, are maybe they were in a circling pattern waiting for a place to land. God only knows, anyway we finally went through these double swinging doors and scurrying folks of the hallways gave way to a clean smell was magnified like six thousand times, more demure, sober, and serious room. But the colors remained.

There were like, all kinds of instruments and machines and I locked in on the tables with scalpels all laid out all in a row. What were these guys going to do, I mean all it was, that I could not swallow with out a scratchy feeling in my throat, come on now. Then one of the green clad guys with green handkerchief on his head and the green cloth over his mouth and tied behind his head rolled up from behind my head and looking upside down at me said, “Alright there is no need to be afraid.”

I thought, “Look who is talking.”

He then brought up this black mask big enough to cover my mouth and nose, and said, “I want you to count from 99 backwards, after I have placed this, as it will help you go to sleep.”

I thought, “Alright it is the middle of the day but I suppose I do need to be asleep for the doctor to do take these things called tonsils out that were stuck in my throat.”

As he started to move this cup over my mouth and nose, I tensed up a bit, then told myself to relax, and that my Mom had said everything was going to be alright. The Cup was placed on my mouth and I closed my eyes.

For a second I thought, “This is where that funny clean smell comes from.”, Then, I heard him counting backwards for me. I do not remember him ever getting out of the nineties, before everything started spinning, like water going down the toilet bowl, man that ice cream was good.

Like magic I woke-up with my world slowly coming back into focus. First I heard muddled and mumbling voices, unclear and indistinguishable. Ok the tower of babble, I am dead. Then the voices became clear and the one I recognized first and most clearly was my Mom’s.

“OK I am safe.”

Opening my eyes I was back in the room, and all of my Family’s smiling faces. Mom said to look up pointing to the upper corner of the bed.

Whoa Momma !! There hanging on the bed were a two holstered set of six shooters.

Although I was not allowed to take guns to school, I wore those guns it seemed like forever, when I got up til I went to bed. I would practice my draw until I became so fast, that my Dad would test me, by seeing if I could get a pistol between his hands before he slapped them shut. I was able to do it a few times, and I can still see him smiling and laughing, as I tried. I know he got a kick out of it, as much as I did trying.
What more could a little reborn Texas boy ask for.
__________

Hope you enjoyed my ramblings and that it brought back few memories of you childhood days, no matter what state you hail from.

© Texas Tortilla Factory 2006 – Mike Vauthier