The Young & The Restless | Tonsils be gone

Steady, muffled metronomic beeping is coming from several directions.

Hushed voices. Scribbling pens. A wail of discomfort rings out.

A nurse’s footsteps move towards the sound, her feet cushioned inside the orthotics she’s been wearing for what’s no doubt been a long shift.

The conditions are not exactly conducive to sleep.

Yet, as restless as I am, I’m still not as on edge as I was 15 hours earlier when I was ushered out as my 13-year-old lay on an unwelcoming surgical table fashioned from hypoallergenic stainless steel moments before a gloved and masked surgeon got to work on him.

A tonsillectomy is a common and low-risk procedure; we all know this.

It seems every second human has had it done.

But when it is your child under anaesthesia, especially for the first time, rational calmness escapes a parent’s mind as each minute in that theatre passes.

I can’t speak for all of us, of course, but it does mine.

Fortunately, my children combined have only ever had minor surgeries, adenoids, fracture wires inserted, fracture wires removed and, now, a tonsillectomy.

After missing roughly a third of his school year last year with constant bouts of antibiotic-resistant tonsillitis leading to other conditions such as strep and laryngitis (which robbed him of his ability to speak clearly enough to be understood for months), there was no choice but to remove the oversized nodes.

Despite his defiance against the surgery as it approached — “they can’t just take a body part from me, you can’t force me” — he knew it was inevitable, and he’d have to go through with it.

When he woke on the morning of his surgery, he refused to pack an overnight bag or leave his bedroom. He threatened to break his fast and eat breakfast.

I began to stress about just how I was going to get him there; his stubbornness is so mighty that I’ve not really found ways to work around it.

Thankfully, he snapped himself out of his own refusal and appeared beside me with his backpack just five minutes later.

This newfound acceptance curiously lasted all the way to the hospital, throughout check-in and while gowning up — even while building with the set of blocks a hospital play therapist kindly brought him to stay occupied (distracted) during his longer-than-expected wait.

He was talkative, happy and very amusing — flopping on to the bed (after several circles of his room in his gown with his jocks hanging out the gap in the back), mouth wide open, saying, “Right, I’m ready for them to take my tonsils out now”.

Finally, around noon, the call came through, and an orderly collected us from the ward.

His concerned eyes fixated on my own from where he lay on his rolling bed along the long, bright corridors, through several sets of double doors, all the way to the theatre.

I, despite my own nerves, had to stay poker-faced.

My cheeks kind of hurt from delivering a steady, forced smile, hoping it would soothe any fears (even though my facial expressions do not easily fool this kid).

When we arrived, all his nervousness flooded back.

Staff from the anaesthesia team did their best to make him comfortable, reassuring him and accommodating his requests, including the one for me to get on the bed with him.

I may or may not have had a fleeting, yet unpleasant, concern that I’d accidentally be anaesthetised and sliced with a scalpel, too.

But then I concluded that I had probably watched too many horror movies in my time.

The next room he was wheeled into was the pre-theatre room, where you could see directly into the theatre where the surgery would take place.

An anaesthetist queued Jack Harlow’s Lovin’ on Me on YouTube on a monitor to the side of the room when my son couldn’t decide on pre-surgery tunes.

He looked at me, a little puzzled, but nothing about the situation felt normal anyway, so I winked at him, and we just went with it.

As he grew more anxious, a kind woman told him not to worry, that “Mum will be there the whole time”, which then catapulted my own anxiety.

I was suddenly hyper-aware I had a hairnet and shoe covers on, and a gown covering my clothes. My brain swiftly backtracked, trying to recall if anyone had told me through this entire journey that I would be in the actual theatre while this was happening.

I started to panic. “No, no, no,” I was thinking, “I will hold his hand while he falls asleep, but I cannot for the life of me watch this procedure performed on my child.”

Thankfully, I spoke a little white lie designed to put a child’s mind at ease when they face uncertainty.

Once the gas had knocked him out, I was instructed to give him a kiss before I promptly went on my way.

Proud of myself for holding it together, I still had to concentrate hard on other things to stop any tears as I made my way back to the ward alone to await his return.

Nobody could (or would) tell me how long that would be, so my relief when he was wheeled in smiling an hour later was unmistakable.

He was his usual self throughout the afternoon, just a little sleepy and spaced out, but night-time brought a new phase where sedation had worn off and sensation had returned.

I big-spooned my sore child when we both lay restless, somewhere between awake and asleep, from 3am.

And in the muted dark, I ticked one box on the list in my head.

Surgery done.

Next item: a two-week recovery where the pain will get worse before it gets better.

Then, resettle him into secondary school after starting nervously only a few weeks ago.

But then, to look forward to a winter with less illness and less pain and a lifetime of more peaceful sleep without oversized little lumps blocking airways.

And lastly, to never look back.

Bree Harding is a former Shepperton News reporter and a single mother to three children.