Today I am Ferris Bueller and I'm going to have my day off. As Mom walks in and wakes me up, I groan. She doesn't hear, or doesn't care. After the fight we had the other day, it's probably the latter. She is already outside the room when I groan louder. “Ma,” I whispered loudly. “I don't feel well.” She is by the doorway. “What?” she asks sharply. “My tonsils are all sored up again,” I said. With the darkness of the room, my dog eyes aren't seen, but you can definitely hear it from my voice. I was practically begging, man! I was in my deathbed, asking for one last favor and yet... “You caused that to yourself. You didn't finish your medication. And you ate too many sweets,” she says even more sharply and leaves. I lay completely still on my bed and with a last groan—this time, an angry and frustrated one—I rise up from my bed.
Why can't I have a much better parents? Why can't I have Ferris Bueller's parents who are so concerned about their kid's clammy hands? Wait, I realize, I do have Ferris Bueller's parents, but I am Jeanie Bueller, not Ferris. I could bleed out my eyes and my parents would still make me go to work.
I trudge my way down the stairs and in all fairness, my tonsils are honestly sore. This is my sickness, my curse. To have huge tonsils that get even more huge when infected. I'm washing my face when Mom attacks me behind my back. “Too much sweets! Too much sweets!” The water is still on my cupped palms when I turn around and stare at her. We are having a staring contest and I lose. I turn back, splash the water on my hands to my face, and say, “Why don't we remove the tonsils altogether, so it will no longer be a bother?” I hear her gasp. “We can't do that! Your Tita Nene specifically said that we can't! She knew someone who had his tonsils removed and along with it was his voice. Do you want your voice gone?” I sigh as I sit down by the dining table. I cannot believe what I'm hearing. They're actually putting their trust to my Aunt about medical-related things. Okay, given, my Aunt was a graduate of Midwifery, a licensed Midwife, and has worked as a company nurse for almost 10 years, but her story was based on secondhand account. Is there a scientific basis? Additionally, we already asked a doctor who specialized with throat matters about this and he said that with the distance between the tonsils and the larynx, voice loss would be unlikely. But in our house, my Aunt has more validity than a real doctor. I cannot point this out, lest I begin a family scandal, so I point something else out.
“I've been dilligent with keeping my tonsils away from swelling,” I say. “The swelling is probably caused by a fever. I've been feeling a bit feverish since last night, anyway.” Okay, I admit, I have no concrete medical proof to support this—it's just a theory—but isn't it when there's a fever, there's an infection being fought, and along with that, lymph nodes (including tonsils) swell up to fight? I've had my AnaPhysio class three years prior, but I'm quite sure that's been said. It doesn't matter anyway because my parents probably don't know what lymph nodes are, much less attended an AnaPhysio class. Mom didn't even believe that I have fever.
“We would have your tonsils removed then what? You would take a leave from work for a week?” she says, not really asking. That's not a bad thought, to be honest. I keep on swirling my macaroni soup breakfast. I take little sips and gulps, but the sore tonsils make it so much harder. I am not looking at her, but she's probably on the couch, playing CandyCrush.
“Do you know someone who had their tonsils removed?” In fact, I do, but it was a friend of a friend's Mom. This time though, there was not a case of voice loss, but my friend told me that her Mom's friend who had his tonsils removed really shrank and became so much thinner. I've read that somewhere that that can be the case when the tonsils are removed, because the wounds would make it so much harder to eat. I know I can't tell Mom that because it will only strengthen her stand against tonsillectomy and I can't give her that, so I simply say: “At least with my tonsils removed, I wouldn't be troubled by tonsilitis anymore.”
She climbs upstairs and I hear her and Dad talking. The walls and the downstair ceilling are wafer-thin, and my Dad talks loudly when mad. He's mad at me, no point denying it. I can only vaguely hear what they're talking about because I decide to tune them out. But I do hear them talking about me and tonsillectomy. I finish my breakfast after a few sips and go the bathroom to bathe.
At 5:25AM, I am all-dressed for work and tying my shoes when the attack continues—this time, by my father. “Will we go see a doctor about this?” I ask meekly. “Then what? You will not finish the prescribed medicine again?” my father answers. He is talking about the incident when I lost three of my 70-peso-per-capsule worth antibiotic. The pharmacy wouldn't sell more capsules, because the pharmacist who sold us first had noted something in the medical prescription. “What about it?” I say. “When I was first prescribed, I finished the medication, and yet, my tonsils still swelled up!” “At least then, it took you longer to have another case of swollen tonsils,” Mom retorts. They're tag-teaming me. “Can you file a leave of absence today to go see a doctor?” she asks. “It's up to you,” I mumble. “What was that?” my father asks. “He said, it's up to us whether he would take the day off or not,” Mom explains. “UP TO US?” my father thunders. “After making and following your own decisions, it's suddenly up to us?” My father has pointed this out before that I make and follow my own decisions. Well, shouldn't they celebrate my independence? It's not that I would blame them for it. “File a leave of absence tomorrow and we'll ask the doctor what he thinks about tonsillectomy,” Mom says with a final tone. I finish tying my shoes. I want to point out that it doesn't matter what the doctor says, because in this house, we listen to traditional, non-medically based medical opinions. I walk to the doorway and bid them goodbye once, not the usual twice.
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