Sorry to be the all-tonsilectomies-all-the-time blog, but I swear this will be the last tonsils dedicated blog post. Because I just had to share this book with you.
A Little Golden Book called Good-bye Tonsils, by Anne Welsh Guy with illustrations by Frank Vaughn, original copyright 1966. What's funny is that I bought this book aaaaages ago, in another lifetime really, before I even had kids. I bought it because I thought it was cute and kitchsy and vintage-style fun. For ages I had it tucked away in a box, and then recently when I made the display wall of shelves, I pulled it out for decor reasons. But then, lo and behold we ended up with an actual tonsillectomy in our near future and suddenly this little book went from being a joke to being rather useful.
It gives a pretty clear and accurate idea of what the whole process will be, but does not dwell too much on the whole "you have to be brave" concept that so many of the contemporary books too. I'm reluctant to introduce the idea of procedure or situation with a whole lot of "this is going to be scary, and so you need to be brave". It basically tells the kid that there is something to be scared of, which seems like not the best idea to me. The thing that the Little Dude was most worried about was that we would leave him alone overnight at the hospital, but I assured him that this was not the case any more, since this book was written so long ago, when kids did have to stay overnight, but now its just a day procedure, so no need for worry there. Thus reassured, he really liked this book and requested it regularly. And interestingly enough, he told me today that he did have to blow into a balloon thing like the little girl in the picture. I had thought that looked old fashioned, but apparently that's still how they do it.
Regarding the child's post-surgery state, a quote on this page reads "Mary Ann felt her throat. 'Are my tonsils out?' she whispered, 'My throat hurts.' Mary Ann felt cross. She didn't want to talk out loud." After the Little Dude's operation, on our way home in the car I asked him how he felt and he quietly replied "Cross". Bless him.
Its good to see that bribing your kids with toys is a time honoured practice. Also, am I the only one who thinks its weird that Mommy leaves her gloves for Mary Ann to remember he by while she's gone over night? Oddly impersonl, but very specific to the time period I guess, back when ladies wore gloves on the regular.
Ah, the 60's when you could get in your car, and sit on your grandma's lap for the ride home. Crazy.
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