Tonsils and Three Albums

 "As Lucretius says: 'Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.'  But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself?  He ever follows himself as his own most burdensome companion.  And so we ought to understand that which we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It's been a rough week at our house for everyone.  

Not long ago, our late-teenage daughter had her wisdom teeth removed.  Whilst she was under general anesthesia, her oral surgeon told us, she was snoring.  He and the anesthesiologist were alarmed by this, and afterwards, he informed us that patients are *not* supposed to snore under general anesthesia.  He said that her tonsils were unusually large, and that we should see an ear, nose and throat specialist.

I confess to being more than a little irritated by this diagnosis.  Our daughter has had several pediatricians, dentists, and an orthodontist who have all examined her throat.  None of these medical professionals mentioned that she had gigantic tonsils.  This is important, because there is much less chance of complications - bleeding mainly - when the tonsillectomy is performed at a young age.  By overlooking the condition of her tonsils, they put her in the position of having a riskier surgery.  Thus my irritation.

This visit to the ear, nose and throat specialist was derailed by the elderly relative that we have been dealing with for a couple of years now coming to a head:  In the span of months, they went from independent living, to assisted living, to a nursing home.  All of this fell on us, and our daughter's tonsils fell off the radar screen for a while.  

This week though, after going through all the administrative and insurance bullshit, we finally got her in for a tonsillectomy and adenoid removal.  The doctor told us afterwards that the tonsils and adenoids were enormous and absolutely needed to go, so that's for the best.  That said, the week has been rough for all of us.  I took the night shift off on the day of the surgery, so that I could provide care that night.

Our daughter had some complications following surgery - vomiting.  I'm not used to outpatient medical procedures.  The staff was leaving at the end of the day, and they just wanted our daughter out of their office, so they could go home.  I guess we could have moved over to the hospital instead of going home, but she said she felt OK enough to go home with barf bag in hand.  It just seemed weird to me to have a patient not quite right and then to shove her out the door.

She was given a prescription of hydrocodone (an addictive opioid and painkiller) and another of lidocaine (a topical anesthetic).  We weren't keen on giving her the hydro, because one of the side effects is vomiting, and because it's addictive.  So we alternated every three hours between two over the counter analgesics: Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and Ibuprofen.  So she would get woken up at midnight, 3:00 AM, and 6:00 AM for children's liquid medicine, since she couldn't have solids.  

I'll just say it was rough for everyone, and leave it at that.  The pain has mostly subsided now, and while she's still in some pain and on a soft-food diet, the worst of the post-surgery trouble seems to be behind us.

There has been one redeeming feature of being awake all night of my days off.  I normally get to listen to music for about 20 minutes during my commute, and then I have to unplug and deal with life.  I've been left alone with my laptop and music, for hours and hours. The random play feature on the MP3 player is awesome.  I use the old Nullsoft WinAmp player, with the cool retro ZDL skin.  The reels spin and the needles dance with the volume of the song.  Highly recommended for visual appeal!

On to the point of this brief post.  I had the pleasure while playing amateur night nurse to listen completely through three albums - something I've not had time for in decades.  I have to say that it was quite an enjoyable experience - one that I'm going to try to repeat occasionally.  Playing songs randomly is nice, but sometimes it's nice to just hear an entire album again.  

Back when I was pirating music, I did several entire albums, and sometimes those pop up on random play.  When I'm commuting, I don't have time to hear an entire album, so I usually just skip it.  I had time to listen while I was doing on-call nurse, so I let them play out, and it was nice.  As a footnote, I owned two of the albums at one point - in 8-track tape format!

What came up?  YouTube links are provided.

Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive (A double album that I likely would never have fully listened to ever again).  Here is a good live Frampton performance while in his prime on "The Midnight Special".  The solo is long, and the phrasing of it is really interesting - flurry of notes, pause, flurry.  He's pretty unique in that respect.

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (Fun fact:  Mike Oldfield played all of the instruments on the album, and recorded each track separately)

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

And I have to say every minute of these was time well spent!  Great music, worth hearing without any distractions.  It's only when you have time to focus and enjoy something that you realize how badly life has been degraded by unnecessary distractions!  Take a moment and sniff the roses :)