I Grew Up This Weekend
My weekend was run by numbers. My family and I were like in a casino waiting for the sphygmomanometer (did I spell it right?) to roll the dice and give us the magic number. Anything higher than 140 over 100 spelt disaster for us. And it was that kind of a day since Sunday.
My mother, the world’s most reliable person, had headaches all week long. Thinking it was the freaking weather and a common cold, she would down Neozeps every day. We learned later on that this drug can cause high blood pressure to people afflicted with hypertension. (Yes, people, throw out them Neozeps. Water and sleep and you’re fine.)
When she hit 180 over 100, I took my wallet, my phone and an umbrella and my mom and we made our way to the nearest hospital. Her blood pressure wouldn’t go lower than 140 over 100, so the ER doctor had no choice but to have her admitted.
I remember a friend of mine back in my Math Club days calling me the biggest worrier on the planet (”You like worrying, don’t you?”) and now I can prove to him that I’m not — I am only the SPAWN of the biggest worrier on the planet. Apparently the idea of an airconditioned room, a day off her chores, and visits from friends and family would only aggravate her condition. My mom just worried and worried and worried.
Each time she would stare into a blank wall, I imagine a thought bubble on her head.
“Cojie’s assignment’s due today”
“I wonder if Ajie still has money for Cojie’s tuition fee”
“Papa’s meds are only until Friday”
“Will my HMO card cover this expense? that expense?”
“Who’s going to do the laundry on Thursday?”
She also developed a phobia of the sphygmo. Especially if her own cardiologist took her blood pressure. We spent almost four days in the hospital — supposedly just three, but on the third day, after a whole day of normalcy (in blood pressure terms), her cardiologist marches up to her, and she probably got excited at the thought of finally going home, that when he took her BP, it registered 170 over 100.
“Bukas na kayo umuwi”.
I felt like I was the only stable, thinking person in the household during those four trying days. My dad remained distant — he has a heart problem too. He tried to be light-hearted about it, making jokes, but I knew he found it difficult to visit my mom (I even think he would make excuses not to visit her) because it pained him to see her so weak. My mom’s sister, on the other hand, was the hysterical and emotional one, crying at every opportunity. Of course the two other boys in the household — my five-year-old son and my engineer-cousin Bojie — are, mentally, the same age.
It was up to me to keep my mom together, to give her hope, to make her happy, to lift her spirits. It was up to me to make sure the bills were covered. It was up to me to make sure that the household ran the same way as it always has when my mom left it. I have managed studies involving more than a hundred respondents, I’ve facilitated field interviews, I just did ten agency roadshows in the last two months — but this. This was the most difficult of all.
The pillars you used to lean on are now — very slowly — caving in. And you have to be the responsible one. Not just for one weekend. But from here on end.
And I felt my age — thirty-one. There’s no going back.
