According to the Mayo website, this commonly occurs in young children (and apparently in Marys that are seniors in college or graduate students.) Yes, the last time this happened was my senior year at the University of Minnesota. My tonsillitis was accompanied by a high fever and vomiting, plus the I couldn't swallow, so I ended up in the hospital for dehydration.
I had a paper due that week. My English professor kindly docked me only one full letter grade for being in the hospital when I was supposed to be turning in my paper. After he saw my hospital discharge form, he thought instead of an "F" maybe I deserved a "B" for the "A" paper I'd written while gumming Popsicles for dinner and choking in pain. My darn tonsillitis knocked me off the all-A Dean's List that quarter.
I got 60% on a quiz this week, but luckily that was the worst of the academic repercussions of my bout with tonsillitis. I felt worse about having to call in sick for work, even though I know I couldn't really work too efficiently without talking or swallowing.
Fortunately the kindly physician at the Farmington Medical Clinic found a prescription for me that shrunk the swollen tonsil tissue amazingly. After only three days on the medicine, I can speak softly again and today I swallowed a piece of bread!
I've been keeping myself alive with Lipton's tomato cup of soup and Popsicles. Last night I got my lips stuck to a frozen sugar-free fudge pop. There's this weird textured feeling on the inside of my mouth where I lost a bit of skin to the frozen treat. But compared to my tonsils, that hardly hurt a bit.
Caution: What follows may be too graphic for some blog readers. This is an actual picture of a pair of tonsils!
Note the two white arrows designating where the tonsils lie behind the tongue.
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