The Fever, the Rotan, and the Leaf

By Ann Estaki  ·  August 3, 2026

Growing Up in a House That Didn’t Believe in Doctors

If you grew up in my household, a fever wasn’t a reason to panic. It wasn’t even a reason to pick up the phone. In fact, a fever was simply a sign that your body was fighting something, and unless that thermometer hit a very specific, very terrifying number—104 degrees—you were expected to sweat it out in silence.

The number 104 was the magical threshold. Not 103. Not 102.5. One hundred and four. Because at that point, my parents would finally concede that perhaps modern medicine was necessary. But even then, it wasn’t a trip to the clinic. No, no. The doctor would be called to the house. The house call was the ultimate compromise: medical intervention, but delivered on our turf, on our terms. I remember the sting of the injection more than the relief, the sharp prick in my bottom being the price I paid for hitting that dreaded number.

The Ice Bath

But the most vivid medical memory I have is from when I was five years old. My fever must have been astronomical because my father actually broke the house-call rule and took me to the emergency room. I vaguely remember the bright lights and the cold, sterile smell. Then came the shock. The nurses had prepared a large tub filled with ice water. Before I could protest, I was submerged.

The shock was visceral. The pain of that cold was a physical assault. It jolted me from my feverish haze, and I woke up screaming, crying so loudly the entire ward could probably hear me. My father stood there, not with panic, but with a sort of grim satisfaction. The fever had broken. The mission was accomplished. My tears were just collateral damage.

The Leaf

For earaches, it was a softer, more domestic kind of torture. My mother would take a fresh betel leaf, warm it over a flame, and drip heated coconut oil into my ear. The smell was earthy and distinct, and I can still feel the warm trickle of oil hitting my eardrum. It wasn’t a cure, not really. It was a tradition. It was the way things were done. It was love, repackaged as a home remedy.

This philosophy extended to nearly everything. When I was a teenager, I was playing sports and my knee gave out. The pain was searing, and my leg felt wrong. I knew something was seriously damaged. I told my parents, expecting a trip to the hospital. Instead, they looked at my knee, looked at me, and deemed it “minute.” A torn ligament was just a minor inconvenience. I limped around for weeks, my body trying to heal itself without any support or medical care, because the injury wasn’t “bad enough” to warrant a doctor’s attention.

It was love, repackaged as a home remedy.

Dental care was no different. We didn’t go for check-ups or cleanings. We went only when the pain became unbearable. I remember sitting in the dentist’s chair, my mouth wide open, as the dentist pulled a tooth. I’m convinced he barely used any anesthesia. I felt every crack, every twist, every nerve scream as the tooth was yanked from my gum. The procedure wasn’t about comfort; it was about extraction. It was about getting the offending tooth out.

And if you were a girl in this house? Well, you just dealt with it. I remember the menstrual cramps so crippling that I couldn’t get out of bed. My mother’s solution was to pound fresh ginger until it was a pulpy mess, squeeze the juice out, and make me drink it. The heat was supposed to help. It didn’t. The pain was so bad at times that I would simply miss school. No questions were asked, no sympathy given. It was just an inconvenience I had to bear alone.

The Rotan

There was also the Rotan. Oh, the Rotan. If you fell and scraped your knee, if you got a cut or a bruise, your punishment was not a bandage or an antiseptic ointment. It was a hit from the Rotan for being careless. You were expected to be more careful. Cuts were treated with a stern lecture, not a band-aid. The sting of the Rotan was meant to teach you a lesson that a simple band-aid never could.

Even catching a cold or a stomach bug was met with a shrug. “Deal with it,” was the unspoken rule. “It will go away.” And usually, it did. There were no vitamins, no yearly check-ups, no preventative measures. You went to the doctor only when you were at death’s door, and not a moment sooner.

Looking back, I realize how brutal this seems. The indifference to pain, the lack of comfort, the sheer stoicism required to exist in that house—it’s a lot to process. We were treated like resilient little soldiers, our bodies expected to fight and heal on their own.

I learned to listen to my body because my parents wouldn’t listen for me.

Choosing Soft

But here’s the strange thing: as a child of that environment, I’ve become incredibly resilient. I have a high pain tolerance. I don’t panic at a sniffle. I learned to listen to my body because my parents wouldn’t listen for me. I know that I can survive a lot.

But I also know that I don’t want to survive. I want to live comfortably. As an adult, I am the complete opposite. I go to the doctor for check-ups. I take painkillers. I have ice packs and band-aids stocked in my cabinet. I want my children to feel safe and comforted, not tough and neglected.

That wasn’t my parents being cruel. They were a product of their time and their culture. They believed that strength came from suffering. They were saving money, but they were also trying to save us from being “weak.” I can’t fault them for it. I can’t even say they were entirely wrong. I am strong, after all.

But I can choose to be soft. And that’s the legacy I’m taking forward.

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Ann Estaki writes personal essays on family, inheritance, and the patterns we carry from one generation to the next.