Tonsils

When I was six I passed out while standing motionless for hours in suffocating hot weather, beside my mom's chair while visiting her ancient aunt. In addition to the obvious triggers, my great aunt and uncle have been read as naively and manipulatively #Psychic. I was taken to the hospital for three days and given all kinds of inconclusive physical tests, but nobody investigated any of the real causes. (Autism, boredom, malnutrition, psychism... And possibly #Syncope due to an FBN1 genetic mutation... )

A month later they put me back in the hospital and cut out my tonsils and adenoids. Made no difference in how often I was sick, but drastically changed how I felt my head, neck, and throat. And taught me a serious lesson - do not trust adults, they have no interest in reality, they only care about their own strange prejudices.

The effect on my left side was mild and soon forgotten. But on my right side it felt like a very significant part of my head was gone - from up where that muscle can make your ears pop, down to the back of my jaw, and forward to my hyoid bone and cricoid cartilage. Like maybe they cut away an important nerve on the right that they did not touch on the left. My right scalene anterior muscle is now huge compared to my left, and chronically tense, pulling my cricoid cartilage down and right, and twisting it CW from above so the right edge is pushed in against my carotid sinus - the body's primary sensor for blood pressure while you're standing!

This complex of effects linked to the spinal accessory nerve fits the "something, deep in my back" sensation I had in the Consumed by the Light experience perfectly! And the potential for it being accidentally damaged during a tonsillectomy is highest for a tubercular kid with rotten teeth!

Wikipedia says, "Symptoms will depend on at what point along its length the nerve was severed. Injury to the nerve can result in shoulder girdle depression, atrophy, abnormal movement, a protruding scapula, and weakened abduction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_nerve

I learned to compensate well enough to avoid being teased about an obvious deformity, but my inner sense of my neck and shoulders was mangled beyond understanding. And my protruding right scapula was a hallmark more obvious even that my round shoulders, hunched back, and anterior pelvic tilt.