Tonsils

Jean Saunders

In the spring of 1965, as I neared my ninth birthday, my mother took me to the doctor. I had had a sore throat more than once and didn't have much of an appetite. Someone - everyone - suggested having my tonsils removed. The doctor looked into my mouth and said 'I had large, diseased tonsils; yes it would be better if they were out.'

My mother told people I had large, diseased tonsils. You'll get ice-cream and jelly they all said. It sounded to me like a party.

Someone I spoke to years later, who'd lived in the borders as a child, told me it was routine there in the late fifties/early sixties for children to be taken away in groups for a couple of days and their tonsils removed. He was pre-school when it happen to him.

On the Monday I went into hospital instead of going to school. We had to get a bus to Princes Street and then another bus to the hospital. My brother had been born recently and was only a few weeks old. My mother carried him wrapped in a shawl on and off the buses.

In the hospital there were about eight of us children in the ward all having the same procedure. I was oldest. I'd never been away from home before except to stay with my grandmother and aunt when my brother was born. And then my sister stayed too. When the time came for the operation we were helped into the backless gowns which I was quite uncomfortable with. My mother used to say 'Don't sit like that! Keep your knees together' I had no idea why, but I knew she wouldn't be pleased that I was wearing a thing which showed off my pants.

Something was given to us which made us drowsy. Then we were laid on a floor which was covered by a thin sheet, and the floor was very cold. The other children were asleep or unconscious but I wasn't quite there yet. I remember a mask being put over my nose. When I came round I was in bed in the ward. There were spots of blood on the pillow - very alarming - and my throat was raw. I'd never felt such pain. It was like when you fell and skint your knees and I'm told that's what happens with a tonsillectomy! The tonsils are scraped off the sides of your throat.

I cried for a week. We were given cornflakes and mice and potatoes which don't taste the way my mother made them. Tomato soup came in a mug. I'd never had it served that way before, and I was sickened to discover a piece of macaroni at the bottom after I'd managed to drink the soup. I'd only ever had macaroni as a pudding. We had it like rice pudding, baked in the over and called it 'chimney pots.' There must have been ice cream and jelly too, but I can't remember it.

The other children were bewildered by me. They stared and kept their distance. I was making such a fuss! I was trouble to the staff. What a terrible child; 'the others are all younger than you and they're not crying" they said. Your age can always be used against you; you'll be treated as a child but expected to behave as an adult.

One of the nurses, the matron perhaps, scowling and fed up with me took me and my mince and tatties into a side room. I took a forkful into my mouth but gagged and spat it out onto the plate, while she was out of the room. But she came back in and stood over me and waited till I'd eaten it all. Eating and crying isn't an easy combination. One day they brought in a young, pretty nurse to talk to me. She very sweetly, smiling all the while, told me that if I didn't eat they'd have to put a tube up my nose and feed me that way. I couldn't imagine that was possible, and all I knew was that every time I swallowed - everytime and not just when I ate - I felt a lot of pain. It frightened me.

Visiting hours were strictly adhered to. One time my mother turned up out of hours. She'd made the two bus trip with my brother, and was turned away. From the window I could see them walking, my mother walking I should say, back down the driveway.

The other children played cards and board games at a table in the centre of the ward. One by one they were allowed to go home. Clothes on, waving goodbye, holding their parents' hands. Eventually my mother persuaded the doctors to let me home. She promised she'd make sure I ate. On the Friday I left the hospital, oh quiet joy. That evening I watched 'Greenacres' on television, an American sit-com which went right over my head, but I can still remember the theme song. And slowly I chewed my way through some home cooking. Familiar food, familiar surroundings. It still hurt when I swallowed and I developed a horrible spitting habit. Back at school I was told my voice sounded different. Soon I forget about the hospital.

The summer holidays were approaching and I'd only been in hospital for a week after all. No doubt it gave the nurses something to exclaim about for a short while.

I didn't think about it again until I was much older and I was surprised how much of it remains in my memory. Like my mother telling people that since I'd had my tonsils out I was eating like a horse.