Hi, my name’s Bobby and at the ripe age of 23, I ended my longest and most toxic relationship: The one I had with my tonsils.
You see, I’ve gotten strep throat a lot.
What do I mean by a lot? More than 25 times. If you’ve never had strep throat, I'll save you a medical explainer and just say it's a serious infection with a type of Streptococcus bacteria that makes it feel like you're swallowing glass with the cute bonus of a fever and nausea.
The last few years it became more frequent.
At the urging of my primary doctor, I found a lovely ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist and made the appointment. Less than 45 seconds into my visit, while going over my medical history, my doctor said it was time to get my tonsils removed.
My hair stylist told me about her complications and being unable to breathe while my grandmother said getting her tonsils out was more painful than giving birth (and she did that seven times).
The big day...
Cue the ice cream?
So what did I actually eat? Basically nothing.
As for the pain, at first it was manageable.
But you really just can't speak
Where’s my collab @KylieJenner
Generally, I don't stop talking — but my throat was so uncomfortable and swollen that there was no way for me to articulate. I could make noises and groan in agreement but that was it for the first 3-4 days. It really felt like there was a tennis ball stuck in the back of my throat. Once I could speak, it hurt tremendously to do so and I sounded like James Charles.
But then it really did hurt.
I also could feel the gross scabs on the back of my throat.
Once the uncomfortable tennis-ball-in-my-mouth feeling went away, I felt the scabs forming and eventually breaking off in pieces in the back of my throat. Sorry, for the visual. Every time a piece of scab broke off, it did become easier to speak, swallow, and breathe through my mouth.
I didn't realize how much my ears would hurt
Once the worst pain passed in my throat, my ears started to actually hurt more. I've never had an ear infection but I'd imagine that's what it felt like. There was a lot of pressure and I couldn't even enjoy the new Years & Years album without pain.
The hardest part was constantly drinking water.
It took about two weeks until I started to leave the house/feel like a real person again.
While my doctor strongly recommended I take two weeks off from work to rest, I worked from home the second week and still focused on recovering. Every day I started to feel better and slowly began returning to a normal diet.
About two weeks after surgery, I worked out for the first time and it was definitely too soon.
Today was my first day back at @soulcycle since getting my tonsils out and it was hard as hell, but I’m so glad to be back at it
I was happy to be active again, but taking a spin class was really difficult and I felt like my airway was being blocked since there were still scabs in the back of my throat. I had to stop a few times during class and focus on my breathing. It was around this time where I had my post-op appointment and was told I was recovering at a normal pace and would still be in pain when I yawned for a few weeks (this was true, lol).
All said and done, I'm glad I had them taken out since I don't have to worry about my troublesome tonsils flaring up anymore.
