Overcoming Fear Through Syrupy Goodness

Two weeks ago, I had a tonsillectomy. Because of my advanced age at a full twenty years old, my doctor instructed me to keep to a “mushy foods” diet for two weeks, as adult recovery from a tonsillectomy is slow and painful and aggravation of the area post surgery with pointy or coarse foods could cause all sorts of problems.

So, mushy foods it was. Now, I know what you’re all thinking. Ice cream. Lots of it.

You’re not wrong.

But, however delicious and wonderfully cold ice cream is, at some point, you’re going to get tired of it. So by day three of my recovery, I was looking for a food adventure.

I was overjoyed to find that besides the ices and ice creams I knew of, my family had recently purchased pudding and applesauce, which I have always been a fan of. I even was eating mashed potatoes!

But the truth is, I was bored.

It wasn’t that I was disappointed with the ice cream, pudding, potatoes, and applesauce’s ability to satisfy my hunger, because I was barely hungry. I was growing desperate because similarities in texture and the repetitive nature of my meal plan was slowly driving me insane. The memories of solid food and complete meals seemed to haunt me. Within the first few hours of my arrival home from the hospital, I was already craving a burrito I knew I wouldn’t be able to have for a while, and the cravings just kept coming. I was starting to miss chewing, but I was also terrified of trying anything that would hurt.

But then, just when I was starting to resign myself to the boring nature of my new diet, I read further down the list of approved and suggested foods and found “pancakes.”

Pancakes! Chewy, warm, fluffy, syrupy pancakes. But would it hurt? Would it be too much for my poor throat to handle? It took several hours of convincing to try, and thankfully, the answer was no. Once I ate pancakes without any major issues, I realized their were a lot of other options of “soft” foods that were not just mush.

So this week, as I slowly return to a normal diet, I am grateful for pancakes for reminding me that there are always challenges in life, but we are often more prepared for them than we originally thought.

Margaret Iuni