STRANGER THAN FICTION: ACE TONSILLECTOMY KIT SMALL COMFORT AFTER SURGERY

After careful consideration, I've decided I would wish a tonsillectomy on my worst enemy.

It would be the perfect way to make my worst enemy plead for death without actually dying -- the ideal punishment for his evil ways.

My tonsillectomy and septoplasty operation was a week ago, and Tuesday was my first full day back at work. I brought my Ace Tonsillectomy Kit: a box of Go-Gurt squeezable yogurt packs, liquid painkiller that makes me loopy and irritating without actually killing pain, saline-based nasal spray and a large jug of ice water. If any of these items run out, I'm done for.

The operation had to be done. A long-term infection rendered my right tonsil the size of a Nerf football. And my deviated septum was causing Three Stooges-like snoring that put my marriage on the skids. I sounded like Curly: "Wwwwrrrrooocccckkkkk-wub-wub-wub-wub-wub-wub."

So I went to one of the most highly recommended ear, nose and throat doctors in Cape Girardeau. He scheduled the operation and carefully explained what would be happening to me. He is a patient man and a consummate professional, but somehow, I didn't get it.

I figured my week-long recovery would be like when you have a virus that's serious enough to call in sick to work but not so serious that you can't enjoy your soaps and some toast and ginger ale.

For an adult, a tonsillectomy is the "Stone Cold" Steve Austin of operations. It body-slams you and then stomps you on its way out of the ring.

My biggest concern on the way to the hospital is that they wouldn't have a gown large enough for my massive rear end. After the surgery, I was so out of it that the nurse could have handed me a bandanna to cover myself and I wouldn't have cared. I only remember a number of drug-induced, mumbled conversations with hospital staff and visiting family members.

I spent one night in the hospital and came home too weak to fend off my cat, who was very interested in my tapioca pudding. All I could do was slur, "Ki-ees, thop eh! Thop eh! Geh ow ah mah foo!" (Translation: "Kitties, stop it! Stop it! Get out of my food!")

I began producing mass quantities of saliva. It was like the scene in "The Last Emperor" where the insane and opium-addicted empress returns home from her time in an institution and spits on everyone and everything she sees. Only, because I'm not a mid-1900s Chinese empress, no one would stay still and let me spit on them.

My activity level was reduced to sucking on popsicles and watching shopping channels on television. Apparently, there is a large segment of society for whom having Susan Lucci's name on products is a huge attraction.

But I hit rock bottom during my septoplasty follow-up appointment, when the two most amazing nurses in Cape Girardeau extracted a three-inch booger from my right nostril. The Other Half, along for moral support, had to sit down. I'd never before had three people present while snot was removed from my body.

It got better after that. I can breathe easily through my nose for the first time since I can remember.

I sucked the inside out of a bean burrito today, the first in what I hope will be many meals of something other than flavored ice and gelatin.

And I'm actually starting to think having the tonsillectomy was the right decision.

It must be the painkillers.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.