Going Under the Knife

So I didn't have a good feeling about doing the nose surgery with the doctor who didn't even realize that he hadn't operated on me yet, and a student of mine who is a doctor told me to call this friend of hers. He told me I should really do it in Borna, a nearby city, and answered a lot of my questions so I was comforted (for example, it made me nervous that I would need to stay 4-5 days when it was an in-and-out surgery in the U.S., but he said, "Theoretically, you can leave. But you'd need to come back each day so the doctors can check up on the nose's progress, so why not let yourself be pampered?). He called the head doctor for me, and when I called, the secretary was really friendly to "the friend of Dr. Badack's." We arranged to have an appointment the very next day (Thursday the 27th) and to do the surgery the following Monday (the 30th) so that I wouldn't have to wait until October, when the doctor would be back from vacation.

I got a ride to Borna from my visiting teaching companion, but the appointment went much longer than I thought. We're talking five hours here. The doctor and his assistant doctor were very quiet-spoken men who both couldn't believe I hadn't had my tonsils out yet and said I should do that in a month (at the same time is not an option, I asked). They said they could see the surgery that had been done when I was 12 wasn't very good and shook their heads that someone would do that to a 12-year-old. I felt good about doing the surgery with them, though I left with a lot of questions, like what to bring with me.

(Tangent: Getting back to Leipzig was crazy. The lady at the information desk had no idea how to get back, so I found a bus stop and asked the next bus driver to come by how to get to the Bahnhof. "BAAAAHNHOEWF?" he asked in that way that only small-town Saxons can, and I eventually got there. But the train came to the wrong platform and I wasn't able to get there fast enough, so I had to wait another hour.)

On Saturday, I talked to this girl and found out she is a nurse, and she was able to answer my questions. She was surprised, however, that they're doing the nose first and the tonsils later, because, as she said, the tonsils have a higher chance of being infected in the colder months and that makes the recovery harder than it already is.

So I'm telling you this because this morning is the surgery. Please think of/pray for me. If you really want to call me in the next few days, call 3433210 (with the German 49 dialing code at the start). But only if you're willing to work your way through the German secretary.