GUEST POST from Don – Ice Cream?

ICE CREAM?

Liars!  It seems that several adults told me before my Tonsillectomy that I would get ice cream after the surgery.  I was preschool age (not yet in first grade).  Let me make it clear that, thinking back, I don’t believe my parents ever said a word about ice cream.  I think those who told me this were do-gooder liars!  They never bought me any.  They never made sure I got any.  They never asked me what my favorite flavor was.  The individual adults told me something he or she never intended to make good on.

Doctor Devlin diagnosed my scratchy throat and I had been scheduled for a morning surgery a few weeks later.  Even so, it took a long time after I was taken back from pre-op check in to arrive at the operating table.  Apparently, a little girl who was scheduled prior to my surgery had problems.  I heard that my parents were frightened for me because it took so long before I came out of surgery.  The explanation was that she did not make it.  I don’t know her name or what surgery she had.  Of course, remembering young memories at my age is … complicated.

In those days (early 1960s) the patient had to stay overnight in the hospital.  I woke up from surgery nauseated (that is how it was with anesthesia back then) and with the sorest throat one can imagine.  I couldn’t tell anyone about it.  It was worse than any sore throat I have experienced since.  Then, later that day, I was moved to the children’s ward (probably 5 other sick children in that room, but with the curtains drawn I can’t be sure).  I was given no instructions, no call button, no “Hey, kiddo!  The bathroom is down the hall on the right side.”)  It was a strange place.  The lights were dimmed.  There was pain.  And I had not had anything to eat or drink since the night before.  It felt like it was after midnight when I finally got the attention of a nurse walking past in the hall and hoarsely asked for water.  At home our water was pumped from a mineral spring.  It was tasty.  It was very cold.  It quenched thirst.  A while later the nurse returned with a cup of city water, absolute room temperature (I’d guess 78 degrees) with no ice.  It almost made me sick.  I remember I held my pee until after I fell asleep (probably about 2am) because I didn’t know where the bathroom was and no one volunteered to allow me out of bed.  The side rails were raised.  

My mom and some of my siblings came the next day to pick me up.  We drove home mostly in silence.  My thoughts were of ice cream because the pain was intolerable.  We drove past the Tasty Freeze and the grocery store and arrived home in the early afternoon.  I thought that maybe there was a container at home for me to try.  But when we got home I was installed on the living room couch as a sick bed and allowed a few sips of “home water.”  It was so much better than city water because it had some taste and it was cold.  Hungry, I was not given solid food.  I think I had some Jell-0.  It hurt to swallow even that.

The anesthesia for my surgery was ether.  Yuck!  I was instructed to count backward from 100.  I think I got to 98.  Once you’ve had ether you can’t get that taste out of your lungs and oral tissues for days.  Guess what smelled like ether to me … bananas.  For months I couldn’t stand the smell of them.  I definitely could not eat one.  Other things elicited sickening nausea, too, like gasoline and rubber boots.  

No ice cream!  I couldn’t talk.  I couldn’t ASK for ice cream.  I was too young to write questions.  After a couple days it was clear that there was not going to be any.

I was not pleased.  The trauma of the surgery, the overnight stay alone, added to the disappointment, and has remained with me to this day.  

Let me say in defense of my parents (and this is something I did not know at the time), they had spent EVERYTHING they had to pay for my surgery.  There was no health insurance.  They went into debt over it.  There was no money for ice cream or anything else that wasn’t absolutely necessary for quite a while.  Of this is am 99% certain…now.

So, I didn’t experience any ice cream until months later when someone had a birthday and mom baked a cake, put a few candles on it, and served small pieces of it with scoops of vanilla.  By then my throat was healed and no soreness remained.  The ice cream wasn’t because of my sore throat.

God hates liars so much He has no place for them in Heaven (see the New Testament Epistles).  There are about as many views on Heaven and Hell as there are people in New York City.  They cannot all be right.  It seems many have a view of Hell which has been informed by Dante, but where did they get their ideas about Heaven?  Some imagine that EVERYONE goes to the good place (without evidence).  Some imagine that life on earth is Hell (without evidence).  The prophet Daniel talks about both in his final chapter.  I like his view since it is both honest and informed.  

I gotta say, there has never been a time when God has lied to me.  He has “lived up” to every promise He has made (with evidence).  God never promised I would receive ice cream, but if He did I would believe it.  So, recently, I have been telling people about Heaven this way: “There will be ice cream!”  What I mean by that: God will make it more enjoyable than He promises.  He will also make Hell less enjoyable than He promises.  Since I believe God I choose Heaven.

God hates liars.  So do I.

Copyright 2025 Donald Whelpley

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