Published: July 03, 2009 12:29 pm      

Onions an ice cream don't mix

Last week, I let my imagination get the best of me.

My 4-year-old grandson was going to have surgery to remove enlarged adenoids.

Routine by most standards, I guess.

I was told that the surgery would take about 15 to 20 minutes.

Sounds simple, but I’ve come to learn that no surgery is routine, and that’s what worried me.

We were putting the life of our beloved grandson into the hands of strangers, and that spooked me.

It was a long morning before I got the call from my wife telling me that things went well.

Our grandson was out of the recovery room and would be discharged the same day.

When I first heard of the impending surgery, I wondered aloud why the tonsils weren’t going to be yanked out also.

Apparently, the trend these days is to allow youngsters to keep their tonsils for as long as possible to save them the permanent psychological damage of ever eating solid food again.

There are some things a kid never forgets.

Asking me if I remember having my tonsils removed would be like inquiring if I recall the first time I got hit in the head with a baseball.

You’re darn right I do.

I was 6 years old when I was told that my tonsils had to be removed.

I was taken to Lee Hospital and dressed in a gown that had no back to it. That was embarrassing even for a kid.

I was in a semi-private room, although I didn’t know the term at the time. There was a kid about my age in the next bed, crying and sounding like a bullfrog when he talked.

A nurse came in to reassure my family, and she told me I could have anything I wanted to eat after the operation.

“You can have as much ice cream as you want,” she said, which triggered a near convulsion from my pale roommate.

It seemed as if he was trying to tell me something.

A big hospital orderly with a tattoo walked in and asked if I was ready to go. The tattoo didn’t bother me. It was the stranger’s size that worried me. Before I had a chance to protest, the giant scooped me out of bed and put me on a gurney.

My mother kissed me, and my dad uttered the same phrase he always said when I suffered personal injury: “Don’t cry, you’ll be better before you get married.”

After an elevator ride, I found myself pushed against a wall in a hall.

I remember lettering on a big swinging door, but since I couldn’t read, I was on my own. The giant stayed with me until a nurse wearing a shower cap and a mask over her face showed up to take over. She pushed me into what I would come to realize later was an operating room.

The nurse told others in the room my name, and a chorus of greetings was delivered. This was when my most vivid memory occurred. The nurse kissed my forehead. She had onion breath.

The last thing I remember was a guy, who also wore a mask to protect his identity, telling me to count backwards from 100.

“I can’t count that high,” I remember saying.

Almost instantly I went to sleep, dreaming of the mountains of ice cream that awaited me.

When I woke up, I saw my mom and dad standing over me.

“How do you feel?” Mom asked.

I swallowed to give her an answer and felt a pain that can only be described by someone who just ate a porcupine.

Following my grandson’s surgery, we took him a few gifts to help soothe his pain.

He loved the get-well card. It showed a porcupine eating a dish of ice cream.