A Tonsil Operation I'll Never Forget
Screen 1 of 2When I was about seven years old, Dr. Carson, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Bowling Green, told my mother my tonsils were infected and that they must be removed immediately.
"It's not a serious operation--quite minor, in fact," he told us. "We can do it right here in my office, and you can be back home in less than an hour." Then he looked at me and added, "you'll be able to eat all the ice cream you want--for a day or two if you wish--after we get those tonsils out of there." The way he described it made me begin to feel the whole thing would be lots of fun.
The ice cream offer appealed to me, and I agreed with my mother that we should have the operation, little realizing what I was in for, before I could have the ice cream.
My mother being a very busy woman asked Dr. Carson if we could have it done right then, rather than coming back the next day. After checking his appointment schedule, he said he could, but he also told us we would need two more people to help -- "preferably close friends."
"Nelle, you can hold one arm, and my nurse will hold the other; but we must have two more persons, one to hold each leg while I am performing the operation."
He continued. "Perhaps the other two should. be rather strong men, since. ..." He purposely lowered his voice to a whisper, and I could no longer hear what he was telling my mother.
"What about an anesthetic?" Mother asked. "Shouldn't you use one?"
I didn't know what she was talking about, but Dr. Carson dismissed her suggestion with a professional shrug of the shoulder, saying anesthetics were necessary only for major surgery, "not for a minor action of this sort."
I remember they gave me a piece of hard candy to suck on while we waited for the others to arrive. In the meantime, I watched Dr. Carson wash his hands and put on a long white coat so stiff with starch it stuck straight out in the back like a rooster's tail. He noticed I was holding my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing at that funny sight, but he didn't ask why.
Soon our good friend, Mr. 0. G. Byrne and a Mr. Fletcher from the nearby drug store came in and said they could help but not for long, because they were so busy.
With that they told me to sit in the huge padded chair, now tilted back so far that I was soon almost lying down on it. My mother held my left hand and elbow; the nurse, the right arm; and each of the two men was instructed to hold a leg, one hand on the ankle, the other at the knee. They were all holding on quite firmly, as though they thought I might try to run away.
A single light bulb at the end of a weighted drop cord was pulled down close to my face by the nurse, and Dr. Carson, knife in hand (later I learned it was called a scalpel), told me to open my mouth "wide," which I did, but without much enthusiasm.
The next thing I knew, the back of my throat suddenly burned as though it had been touched by a red hot iron. And as the sharp pain ran through my whole body, I let out a scream that must have been heard across the town square. I'm sure I would have jumped out of the chair if those four people had not been holding me so well. All I could do was squirm and wiggle.
"It's almost over," Dr. Carson said as he picked up another knife from a pan on the table. "Just hold still one more moment and I'll be finished."
The second cut also hurt terribly but not as much as the first one. My throat must have been numb by that time.
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