What puts a person to sleep can have other interesting effects. This is very true for anesthetics. Ether was the one used on me when I underwent surgery at a young age. The cause for the surgery was tonsillitis, a not uncommon illness in the 1940s. If a kid’s tonsils were inflamed and there were constant complaints of sore throats, the tonsils came out. Physicians back then probably knew why these glands in the back of the throat had to be removed, but little kids were given only one reason, “you gotta have them taken out.” The same was true for adenoids. I was led to believe that these glands, in the nose rather than the throat, also caused problems relating to my repeated head-colds. Tonsils and adenoids must be dug out as soon as possible. For me, this happened when I was about five years old, a few months before I entered first grade.
I don’t’ recall directly what was done to me. Perhaps back then, even my parents were not completely informed of the procedure. All I remember was the gas mask being placed over my nose. The next thing I saw were pink elephants dancing around the tops of the walls, near the ceiling in my hospital room. They amazed me.
I did not expect to see dancing elephants, pink or otherwise. I was not sure how they got there, but they were very real. The only good result of seeing strange, albeit cute, pink elephants was the ice cream that came along with them. I was told ice cream was earned when tonsils and adenoids were removed. The elephants were my extra reward.
These amazing animals and their movements may have been my own particular response to what Disney was doing about then. In the late 1930’s, Walt produced Silly Symphonies and its ultimate form, Fantasia. If he could create pirouetting hippos, I could have my own dancing elephants.
I later wondered which came first, Disney’s fluid colors and music or my own synesthesia. Starting at a very young age, I’ve been able to close my eyes and listen to music that produced shifting, blending colored patterns in my head. Brass yielded red-golds and orange-yellows depending upon pitch and tonal qualities. Strings came in purples and violets. Woodwinds were seen in greens and blues. It was wonderful to observe symphonies behind closed eyelids. Later, this became a problem. Other concertgoers no doubt thought I slept through every classical performance. As I’ve aged, however, the mixed senses have become less common. Closed eyes and music now results in sleep more than in personal fantasias. Back then, I found that ether, given as part of a surgery, had results similar to those provided by orchestras.
As for the surgery, itself, the result was also somewhat strange and unexpected. The removal of tonsils and adenoids from my throat resulted in aluminum arch supports for my feet.
Family legend has it that when my tonsils and adenoids were excised, the surgeon nicked my thyroid gland. Whatever the cause, within a month after the operation, I had gained weight, almost fifty pounds. My body did not readily adjust to the rapid increase. When I went from what appeared to be a malnourished kid to one with, what relatives continued to call, “just baby fat,” the arches in my feet collapsed so that I left Donald Duck footprints when I stepped out with wet feet. I was forced to wear aluminum arch supports for the next six years, until I started junior high school.
My footprints are still very wide. I seldom go around with completely bare feet. I need to make sure I do not leave the tracks of a dancing, pink elephant.