Memoirs of a Worker

Tonsils

I will dedicate this chapter to my friend Ahmed, since it is about him and the terrible ordeals he suffered while having his tonsils removed. I hope you all enjoy and I also hope none of you can relate to these experiences!

___________________

The one thing that I’ve found by working all over the world is that the world is full of lots of really good people. Of course there are also some scoundrels, but with this chapter I will focus on one of my friends and a really good guy, Ahmed. I met him when I worked in Djibouti, Africa at the U.S. embassy.

Ahmed spoke perfect English and was a retired pilot. For a few years he worked as a commercial pilot for one of the major European airlines. After four or five years of flying from Europe to all parts of the world, Ahmed changed jobs and ended up flying air freight in the United States. When he retired his mother begged him to move to Djibouti so he could be close to her and his siblings.

Sometimes in the evenings I would hang out with Ahmed, and we went fishing and boating together. He worked at the GSO warehouse, not because he needed the money, but for something to do. Whenever I needed supplies at the warehouse, I would stop and visit with him. He told me a story that I would like to share today about when he had his tonsils out.

“When I was eight years old,” Ahmed started, “my tonsils gave me lots of problems. We lived in a small village in Somalia. There was no doctor other than the local medicine man or ‘witch doctor.’ When my mother took me to him, he looked in my throat and said he could help.”

“Did he have any medical training of any kind?” I asked him.

“Oh no, but he was all we had in that village and everyone trusted him. He told me to lie down on the ground and to stick out my tongue. He had a piece of bamboo that was about twelve inches long that had been cut in half lengthwise. One of the halves had a slit in the middle so that when you pushed the ends together the slit opened up.”

“A piece of bamboo with a slit in it doesn’t sound like he was up to date with all the latest medical procedures,” I commented, starting to worry where this was going.

Ahmed smiled and shook his head. “As soon as I stuck out my tongue, he slipped that piece of bamboo with the opening in it, over my tongue. When he let go, the bamboo clamped down so hard on my tongue that I thought it was going to break off.”

“You got to be kidding,” I groaned.

“I tried to get up, but he pushed me down. He yelled at a couple of his assistants, and they came over. One of them sat on top of me and held my arms down and the other kneeled down so that my head was between his knees, and his hands pushed down on my forehead so I couldn’t move.”

“I don’t like where this is going, are you sure this is the way it happened?” I said to him.

“Oh, this is the way it happened alright! The other half of the bamboo stick had been sharpened, kind of like in a gouge shape. The witch doctor pulled on the bamboo that was on my tongue and that made my mouth open real wide. Then he reached in with the sharpened bamboo and tried to dig out my tonsils! He got part of them, but then I started to bleed so bad that he was forced to quit. After he removed the clamp from my tongue, he gave me a glass of salt water to drink and swish around in my mouth.”

“Why didn’t you die? The shock alone should have killed you!” I exclaimed.

“Well obviously I didn’t die, but I did lose a lot of blood and I was very weak. When I tried to get up, I fell over and I cried. The witch doctor told me to quit acting like a baby and he hit me and called me names.”

“I did get somewhat better, but my tonsils still gave me a lot of problems. When I was eighteen years old, the Russians had quite a presence in Somalia. I knew that Russia was a nuclear power and that they had satellites in space. I figured their medical procedures were also advanced, so I went to a Russian doctor.”

“That makes sense to go to a real doctor.”

“Yeah, well don’t jump to conclusions. The doctor had me sit in a chair with my arms on top of the armrests, while two of his aids came into the room. I had learned Russian in school. I asked what they would be doing, and the doctor said, ‘observe.’ He asked me to lean my head back and to open my mouth, which I did. At the exact moment I leaned my head back, one of the aids and the doctor strapped my arms to the chair and the other guy  fastened a headband across my forehead, so I couldn’t move. Panic struck, and I was filled with terror.”

“That’s barbaric! What did you do? I hope you didn’t open your mouth.”

“The doctor told me to open my mouth, but I refused. When I wouldn’t open my mouth, the doctor had his assistant reach around and hold my nose. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I was forced to take a big deep breath. The instant I opened my mouth, the doctor shoved a wedge in between my teeth! I tried to scream out, but it didn’t do any good.

“The doctor then put this huge needle into my mouth and stabbed each tonsil. The pain was terrific! I thought I’d pass out and not have to feel anything, but no such luck. He then reached in with a scalpel and started to cut. I felt every slice and it really hurt. Blood started to pour out of my mouth and so the doctor put something in my mouth that looked like a drill, except when he pulled the trigger, the end got red hot. He shoved that down my throat and rubbed it around each tonsil, burning them to stop the bleeding.”

I felt sick just listening to him. “If you hadn’t been strapped in, you could have killed the doctor and it would have been called justifiable homicide!” I exclaimed. “So I’m guessing that even though his procedure was on the brutal side, your tonsil problem went away, correct?”

“Hold on. It was right after this that my family moved to Djibouti and I started my flying career. A few years later when I was flying air freight across the United States, my tonsils flared up the third time. I was so miserable that I finally walked into an emergency room, at a hospital in Denver, Colorado. When the doctor looked in my throat, he scheduled an operation. I was nervous, but calm at the same time.”

“After all your experiences, whatever could have made you feel calm?” I asked.

“Well the place was clean and spotless. The floor was so shinny it could have been used as a mirror. Unlike the Russian clinic, there were no cigarette butts on the floor and the doctor didn’t have a cigarette hanging out his mouth with ashes falling on me when he examined me. The doctor and nurses were all dressed in white and they acted professional, like they knew what they were doing. They admitted me and put me in a clean room and then a nurse gave me an IV. After a while, they wheeled me down a long hallway, and then I fell asleep. When I woke up I was back in the room and the surgery was all over. I hadn’t felt a thing! I stayed in the hospital for two days because the doctor said he wanted to be able to check on me and make sure there would be no hemorrhaging. I ate jello and ice cream, and they gave me medication for pain. I was a little uncomfortable, but there was no pain like I had experienced the two previous times. I’ll tell you this, I love American doctors.”

I nodded in agreement.

______________

After Ahmed told me this story, I have always been grateful to have been raised in a country that has good medical doctors and proceedures. If you liked this please click on the star and comment. Thanks for reading.