RMCO Day 80 ~ Friday, 28 August 2020 (Piano Tuning & Cassandra's UTI Attack)

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 of Cass who 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 misfortunes, misevents and expenses, with the worst being the year 2009 where we had to dig our life savings to pay Cass' surgeries and hospitalization bills 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 a dr's 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.  I only trust Dr Eric, the pediatrician who's been treating Cass since she was a 6 week old infant and knows her through and through.

On the day of Cass' admission, 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 told us to go to the A&E first for all the tests including a pre-admission Covid-19 rapid antigen nose swab.  At the A&E, we were attended to by a very friendly doctor and friendly nurses.  Her urine and blood samples were taken.  Staff were all draped in PPE suits, which would be charged to our bill!  Thank God Cass took the Covid-19 nose swab pretty well and even laughed after the 3-second procedure, albeit teary eyed from the discomfort.

Never mind about the bill and cost. My immediate worry was for Cass to be admitted for antibiotics infusion via IV catheter (her usual treatment for UTI), 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 had 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%).  The bill was over RM6k, a figure befitting 5-star service and 5-star facilities. We were very satisfied with everything except that there were baby cockroaches in the bathroom and room and Cass was terrified!  She Whatsapped me at 3 a.m. to tell me that she saw a baby cockroach in the bathroom 😁

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.

Despite the stressful few days for me, there was a little calm during the storm:

1. The bacteria is E.Coli and is not a resistant bug. It's sensitive to a few antibiotics that Cass is tolerant to.  This also means that I can easily flush out E.Coli from Cass' urinary tract with D-Mannose at the right dosage.
2. The WBC (white blood cells) quickly went down from 200+ to 19 in  just 2 days upon starting antibiotics drips twice a day.
3. Maria our part-time maid came in to help out with the chores everyday and this really gave me a peace of mind and huge relief knowing that someone whom I trust is at home helping me while I was in the hospital.
4. We had the entire double bedded room to ourselves and didn't have to share bathroom. 
5. Our insurer approved the claim. Praise The Lord!