‘I can help. Any little helps, doesn’t it, any research that you can do? Tonsils, getting them out is major, so any kind of research that I can help with, that's fine, I don’t mind.’
‘The thing that I struggled with was that the idea of it felt like a bit of a gamble. So I had to keep saying, “If I wasn’t taking part in this would you recommend to get my tonsils out?” because I didn’t want to just sign up if it wasn’t recommended.’
‘I thought, “If it’s recommended then I will do it”. Then I thought, “It might as well be useful to somebody at some point as well”. I thought somebody might as well get some information back from it. They did explain that it was quite a grey area, and some doctors would recommend it and some wouldn’t. So I thought, “Well at least, if I’m getting it done anyway, I might as well help out somewhere, if I can”. That was the idea behind it, really.’
‘So I know that it’s just good, generally, to help with research. Also I got recurrent tonsillitis. I had wanted them out, and you wanted to see how effective having them out was. So I thought, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to get them again in the study period, so if I’m not in the whip-them-out group, I’m probably a good candidate.” That was my thoughts.’
‘Yes. And I am interested in the way the research goes because I’m still thinking, “Do I need a tonsillectomy?” And I think it’s quite worrying sometimes when you hear the negatives.’