This blog post is adapted from a personal Facebook status update.
Posted on Facebook, about 5 days after my tonsillectomy:
I must look really good today because when I walked into the GP’s room she asked if I was going to be sick (just tired & in pain).
The good news is I got more painkillers & she took a look at my throat & said it looks good.
Tonsillectomy vs Tonsillitis
Written one year after, when I shared the memory:
I almost have a sore throat today. Or maybe I do. My one year tonsillectomy anniversary was the Sunday just gone so as you can see, my Facebook memories are full of my recovery right now. It’s interesting to remember how I was.
I’ve had such severe sore throats in my life that anything under “agonising to drink” doesn’t really rate on throat pain scales for me. I think what I assume is a “normal” sore throat is like a dry irritation to me.
Tonsillitis was FAR worse than a tonsillectomy for me. The ENT didn’t believe me. I was definitely in a (metric) shittonne of pain the first 2 hours after surgery, even though I was a) out of it and b) I know enough to know they were putting more drugs into my canula.
But apart from that, recovery for me was not as painful as sobbing trying to drink water during a tonsillectomy bout. Perhaps because tonsillectomy is treated as serious and you get proper pain medication, and tonsillitis isn’t viewed with the same level of seriousness?
Tonsillitis is weird. It was a chronic problem for me, and yet I feel like it wasn’t treated like it. My impression of the treatment I had was of individual illnesses/bouts, even though for the three months prior to surgery, I had it non stop and lived on antibiotics (great for your stomach, by the way).
It makes me wonder if there’s either a lack of medical research/literature (or lack of doctors reading it) about how fatigued and awful tonsillitis makes you feel when you have it for months.
Many (non medical) people I spoke to in the lead up to my surgery didn’t even know adults could get tonsillitis. They thought it was only something kids got. I understand it’s more common that way, but to not know adults could get it at all was strange.
Whatever the actual occurrence/reasons/whatnots, it’s clear there’s a lack of public knowledge and information out there for adults who are getting their tonsils out. Nearly every single post I read was for parents and phrased as “this is what your child will experience”.
And from my very limited knowledge of this medically, children recover differently (faster) than adults. I wrote a blog post about my recovery and since I published it, it has been the highest viewed post on my blog every single day. Literally.
Clearly there is a giant global need for adults to get support with their tonsillitis and tonsillectomies, otherwise a post on my lil old blog wouldn’t get so much traffic to that specific post.
Anyway, to end this on a very me note, I really wanted to ask if I could see or keep my tonsils when I came out of surgery but I was too doped up to ask.