Last week the piano tuner guy came. Did I tell you that I have not tuned the piano ever since I got it from hubby's relative about 6 years ago? And if it wasn't because Cass kept reminding me to have the piano tuned, I would have procrastinated even longer. She kept telling me that the pianos at her music school sound so melodious but ours is out of tone. Excuse the tone deaf mother who also plays the piano but I couldn't tell the difference 😬
MY BAD!
And because the heater also conked out, the wooden keys inside the piano turned moldy. The tuner had to dismantle the entire set of keys to bring it back to his shop to clean and remove the mold from the keys. From an initial price of RM150 quoted to me, I ended up having to pay RM1,600!! This includes two times tuning, servicing the moldy keys, fixing the pedals, replacing the heater and purchase of a new high quality extension wire with plug for the heater. I also had to call in our in-house condo technician to help us replace a wall socket for the heater. Oh. My. Gawd.! This is the year that we've been dealt with the most losses and expenses, apart from the year 2009 where we had to dig our life savings to pay Cass' hospitalization bill amounting to over RM50,000!
And on the day that the tuner came to our house again to re-assemble the piano, and caused a mess, Cass had high fever and flank pain, a result of the UTI attack that she had. From a mild lower urinary tract infection, the pain slowly went up the urinary tract as the bacteria traveled up. While attending to the tuner, I had to get appointment for Cass, made sure that her fever is under control, that she drank enough Waterfall D-Mannose and Ural and went to the toilet regularly. The fever suppository that I had in the fridge had expired and I had to run out in the Friday lunch traffic jam to get them from the pharmacy. Boy was I stressed out to the max!
It was the safety of my daughter's precious kidneys that was stressing me out. I was scared stiff that the longer I waited, the more chance I would be giving to the bacteria to travel to her kidneys to scar them. It didn't help that Dr Eric put more worry in me when he told me that Cass' kidneys could be inflamed and scarred if I didn't take immediate action. And he told me that because it's already a Friday evening, all the charges would be double if I brought Cass to the hospital now (Friday night). And charges would be double and even triple on a Sunday and public holiday (National Day holiday on Monday). I was so stressed out and rattled that I just couldn't think straight of what to do first.
And my online boss had an offer of 10 urgent articles for me to write, for submission in 2 days. GOSH that's a lot of money but I had to turn her offer down to settle what's more important to me first 😰
The next day (Saturday), we went to Pantai Medical Center very early in the morning. Dr Eric, Cass' pediatrician since she was 6 weeks old told, us to go to the A&E first for all the tests including a pre-admission Covid-19 swab test. At the A&E, we were attended to by a very friendly doctor and friendly nurses. Her urine and blood samples were taken. A Covid-19 rapid antigen nose swab test was taken too. Staff were all draped in PPE suits, which would be charged to our bill!
Never mind about the bill and cost. My immediate worry is for Cass to be admitted for antibiotics infusion via IV catheter, get an ultrasound scan done to check her kidneys, blood works done to check her renal function and urine FEME test and culture to determine what bacteria has attacked her. While waiting at the A&E, I called our insurance agent to arrange for a guarantee letter. My next hurdle was to get the insurer to approve the claim. Thank God the initial guarantee letter was approved pretty quickly and my next worry is whether the insurance company would pick up the hefty bill. As you know, insurance companies will always find ways to reject claims, especially if the insured has a congenital condition. Praise the Lord, on the day of discharge 3 days later, our claim was approved (90%).
During our 3.5 days stay at the hospital, Cass and I did quite a bit of walking around the hospital. Pantai is like a mini mall with Borders, MBG Fruits, Tealive, Starbucks, Subway, Paparich, Wrap N Roll, Caring Pharmacy and other well known cafes. I made sure that Cass clocked in at least 2k steps rather than remained sedentary on the hospital bed with eyes hooked to her phone and TV (complete with Astro!). She was feeling well with medication and looked forward to walking around the hospital to kill boredom.
We had the entire room to ourselves as the next bed was vacant. I even did some light exercises in the room.