My two boys had their tonsils removed yesterday. We were at the Primghar hospital from 6:00a.m. to 7:30p.m. Things went well, for the most part, but we can never do anything without some complications or excitement.

Anthony’s bed pinched an electrical cord just a few minutes after he returned from the OR. The room went dark. Sparks, smoke, panic. He and his bed were wheeled out into the hall, just as he was coming out from under anesthesia, wild, disoriented, flailing around, tangling himself up in all the tubes and cords. His IV kinked up, and he had to be stuck again for a new one.

Two hours later, Evan came out of the OR snoring louder than I’ve ever heard him snore. Anthony, who has been aggravated to no end by this snoring, sat up and cried out in despair, “That’s HIM? He’s STILL snoring??” When Evan began to wake up, I stepped out of the room for 5 minutes, feeling like I’d been in the way all morning. When I returned, he was crying this hoarse, heart-wrenching cry, and 3 nurses were holding him down. He had pulled his IV out. As they stuck him 3 more times looking for a vein, he wailed, “I want my tonsils back in!”

The surgeon said their tonsils had been enormous, and Evan’s had been larger than Anthony’s. Later that afternoon, a nurse brought them into the room in a container. I don’t remember much after that.

The boys are doing pretty well now, although they’ll never want to see another popsicle again after this. I stayed home from work. They’re a little cranky, mostly because of the 3 different kinds of nasty medicine they have to take, but they’re already bright-eyed and smiling again.