Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle. … Make Jell-O gelatin and make some fun!

I loved those commercials back in the 80s, give or take a decade and I really used to love Jell-O. My boss’ 21-year-old son had a tonsillectomy early this morning. It caused me to reflect back on December 22, 1987 when I had my tonsils removed for the second time. Well, lucky me! The older you are when your tonsils are removed, the more difficult the recovery becomes. So, Jell-O gelatin was my go-to fare for Christmas 1987 some three or four days post-surgery. On Christmas Day, my mom tried valiantly to lift my spirits by serving me a large bowl of red and green shimmery Jell-O topped with whipped cream, but still … it just wasn’t a memorable Christmas Day meal. To commiserate with me, she heated a bowl of Chunky Soup and had a sandwich while I spooned chilled Jell-O down my surgically-repaired throat to soothe the after effects. I had scheduled to take off work between Christmas and New Year’s which was a good thing, since I had post-surgery earache complications as well. Query: why does one person have to have two tonsillectomies? Was it an incompetent ENT doc the first round? Well, I have to wonder. I had my tonsils out the week after school ended in June 1972. I was 16 and placed in the pediatric ward, the oldest patient there, and my roommate was a petulant young girl who fell off her horse and broke her arm in multiple places. I had ear complications then as well and ended up spending a week in the hospital. It was the week the Watergate scandal broke and nothing was on TV except the details of that big news event. For years after tonsillectomy #1, I constantly got sick, despite eating healthy and taking care of myself. If someone suffered with a cold and merely came near me, like in the elevator, I ended up with the same malady within 24 hours. I went to several doctors who scratched their head, puzzled why a seemingly healthy person could keep getting so sick. They ran a battery of tests and asked if I had my tonsils out. When I responded “yes”, they never bothered to peer down my throat. One doctor suggested I see an ear, nose and throat specialist which I did. He stuck that horrid tongue depressor down my throat and declared “why you have a tonsil root and that’s why you continue to be sick – it has to come out” … so what the heck is a tonsil root? Dr. Kwyor likened it to a potted geranium. You can snip off the top portion, but the root remains forevermore, so unless you physically go and destroy it, that geranium will bloom for years. We scheduled the surgery for the following week and it took all of five minutes to remove the annoyance. I was home that afternoon. Red and green Jell-O were the menu items Christmas Week of 1987 and somewhere in my photo albums I have pictures of me downing a huge bowl of Jell-O in front of the Christmas tree. I’ve never felt the same way about Jell-O since 1987. I had some extra time this morning so I tromped over to Memorial Park and stomped out a path to walk around in my lug-sole boots. Well, I eked out another two miles with this morning’s trek as I keep plugging away toward the ultimate goal and will keep you posted.