No tonsils, no candy, no fun 

I grew up thinking that my not so comfortable medical encounters were probably the same everywhere in the world – I had no awareness of “a better way” because, obviously, that’s what happens when information is censored. Imagine the shock I had later when, having access to western media, I saw a movie scene where kids got candy at the doctor’s office in the US. Looking back at my doctor experience in communist Romania, not only do I get PTSD, I almost want to call the European Court of Human Rights and have a chat. Can we all get some candy now, at least? 

I offered a glimpse into the communist medical system in my previous articles, like getting the mandatory vaccines in school, and my first days on this planet (out of all possible cool places, a shitty hospital in my hometown, being drenched in my own piss)  – but that doesn’t even begin to reveal the whole picture. I’m not going to attempt that, but I can throw in a few stories that might help clarify the uncomfortable, at times verging on horror (disclaimer… don’t read if you’re squeamish).

I wasn’t exactly a sickly child, but I did have a few typical ailments. Obviously, going to kindergarten and hanging out with other booger-spreading kids ensured I got lots of colds. To this day, I unconsciously dread colds, because back then, having a cold meant an automatic doctor visit. We didn’t have “family doctors”, but we were assigned to a clinic (called polyclinic) and ours was downstairs in our building. Just great – we shall see the doctor, and the big syringe, even if there is no real reason or illness … 

The waiting room experience was always a long ordeal, because appointments didn’t really exist in a professional form, so you’d walk in and wait for your turn, at first standing, even if you felt like dying, because the waiting room was so full of people that all seats were taken. 

Once you got your turn, usually fighting for it with some sneaky jump-the-line broad, you’d go into the office and pray that the doctor acknowledged you at all. The doctor’s office looked like a hybrid between a hospital room and a library. I distinctly remember the wall cabinets full of small drawers with medical records, and me sitting on the metal bed on the opposite side, dangling my feet, staring at the big metal tins with syringes. All I wanted to hear was that I don’t need injections. 

A doctor’s niceness was often determined by the “attention” the patient would be willing to offer. We called gifts and bribes “attention”, so it’s kinda cute (not) to realize it was just another ego feeding, temper taming endeavor, because, in this country where everyone was persecuted and controlled by the “system”, they would use any little power they had to persecute and control the weaker others in turn, because… why would they actually try to break the horrendous cycle…

I went in for a cold checkup once and my mom slid the doctor a couple of chocolates. I was livid – I loved chocolates and we didn’t have any at home for me, yet there was my mom, giving two (!) to the doctor. Those big chocolate tablets were rare, so as kids we didn’t get them often. The old lady doctor was writing something looking down at her paper on the desk, she didn’t even flinch –  took the chocolates, kept talking, didn’t raise her head, sneakily opened a drawer and pushed them inside, closed the drawer, kept talking. Eventually she got up and listened to my lungs for a couple seconds, made me stick my tongue out, turned around and sat on her chair, finished writing whatever and off I went, still craving chocolate. Hopefully she choked on that attention…

I was sooo lucky to not have any major illness or ever need hospitalization. Hospitals in Romania resembled what you’d nowadays see as a rundown mental institution in a movie. Yes, moaning and screaming included – because pain management was not exactly the focus of the questionable medical practice at the time. 

These hospitals were old, crumbly buildings, cold and stern, bug infested and bleak. The beds, walls and bathrooms were often stained (you didn’t want to know what that was), a lot of the toilets missed the plastic seat, water was not always running and instead was saved in rusty metal barrels. If this was the 80s, I imagine the 50s must have been even more fun. 

Once, when I was about 3 or 4 years old, I had to stay in the hospital overnight and the little I remember about it may really make it sound like I was in a mental institution: the high ceiling room,  fluorescent tube lights flickering (some were broken), and a peeling metal bed frame. Being a kid, I shared the bed with my mom, and so did the other 5 or so kids in the room. There were no dividers for privacy or anything, it was all a pajama party for the sick. Come in with one illness, leave with 5 more. 

I wasn’t really sick. I just had another cold, and some wise-ass, chocolate-bribed doctor recommended my mom to remove my tonsils so that they wouldn’t flare up with every cold. And hey, while we’re there, take the nasal polyps out as well, why not. Truth be told, this was a “cut the costs” kind of mentality, by removing these organs you’d just hopefully visit the doctor less often. 

There I was, in a cold doctor’s room in the hospital, awaiting my surgery. You’d think I was prepped with some anti-anxiety medication and freezing? You’re dreaming. Such surgery was not done with freezing, or any concern for the child, in communist Romania. The only “freezing” I got was a sheet wrapped and tightly tied around me, so I couldn’t move my hands or … anything else (you thought I was exaggerating the mental institution comparison, didn’t you).  

Yet again the doctor was fashionably late. I had to wait, staring at the torture tools lined up on the side table, my mom holding me in her lap, sometimes spinning me on the doctor’s swivel chair – guess that was the anti-anxiety treatment, but that didn’t quite work as intended… from the nearby room I could hear a grown man screaming in pain. That, with the sight of some ginormous throat pliers made for an interesting prep time. 

When the doctor finally walked in, he didn’t seem very concerned with my persona or even the inflamed tonsil part of my persona. He sat down on his stupid swivel chair, took his big metal tools, probably a forceps, made me open the mouth and went in with mad butcher skills – reached deep into my throat, cut out my tonsils, while I was gagging uncontrollably. I don’t remember being able to breathe, and I don’t remember the doctor being concerned at all, as I was choking with blood and probably puke. I wasn’t able to signal anything since I was all tied up, and my attempts to cry were but gargling sounds. But then there was more, he reached out for the mighty polyps next. In theory, this didn’t last long, but for me it was an eternity. And let me put it this way – pain was the least of my problems.  Once it was over, my mom held me over a sink and I threw up all the blood and what felt like all my internal organs, while still gagging. Slowly, I was able to breathe again. 

Hmm…I wonder why I have a strong gag reflex as an adult, and I have to mobilize an entire dental x-ray team just to get a damn x-ray without throwing up. This shit should be right there on my chart instead of allergies. 

I was just a toddler and I remember the surgery in quite some detail. My brother had to go through it, too, as well as many other kids. Empathy and sympathy from parents and doctors were not a thing, everyone knew this was something that “needed to be done” and there was no room for emotions. The post-op recovery in a damn salon with a flickering tube light didn’t sound too bad anymore, because that meant you were now free to enjoy the rest of your life tonsil-free. 

You think we got candy or ice cream as a treat? Too expensive. I got bread soaked in a cup of linden tea. Bread in tea is like the universal sick food for everyone, including the toothless and the tonsil-less.

Dental work was another type of procedure done without any freezing and numbing. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know what freezing for medical procedures felt like until I came to Canada. Back home, I had all filings, root canals, and crowns done with medieval dentist tools without freezing. I remember the pain but then again, as I was getting older, I learned to deal with it. Not coincidentally, most Romanians have bad teeth – after all, we avoided dentists like plague, and for a good reason. Growing up I didn’t want to see the dentist until it got too late, and when “late” came I would brace for multiple treatments. How did it go? Simple, when the pain got too intense you’d scream, so the dentist knew to take a break from drilling. 

Rants aside, I’m getting my retroactive icecream and candy as often as I want nowadays – while I have patched teeth and no tonsils, I might as well be fat. If that lands me at the doctor or the dentist, that’s ok, at least there’s no giant syringe or forceps going down my throat.