T Minus 6 Days and a Wake Up

Seeing as this place has recently turned into Tonsillectomy Central, I thought I’d take the liberty of laying out my fears surrounding the dreaded surgery. With the procedure rapidly approaching, I find my anxiety intensifying and my days increasingly spent worrying about the following:

• My chart will be mixed up with another patient’s and I’ll wake up with some random body part removed;

• My doctor, due to sleep deprivation, will unwittingly butcher my throat and I’ll either die from drowning in my own blood, or excessive plasma loss;

• The anesthesiologist will overdose me just enough to cause severe brain damage, or with my luck, death;

• My voice will be transformed into an earsplitting squeak or raspy croak;

• I will have a heart attack in the waiting room from my heightened anxiety;

• My liver, so damaged from alcohol and drug consumption, won’t be able to handle the anesthesia and I’ll die on the table before they can pull out the scalpel; and

• The facility will be unsanitary and I’ll develop a sadistic post-surgery infection that will infiltrate my brain and other vital organs.

Deep down I know the likelihood of any of these scenarios happening is minimal, but I’m becoming increasingly irrational about this procedure. My brother had brain surgery for goodness sakes; I should be able to suck it up for a forty-five minute tonsillectomy.