The Price to Pay

These days, nothing in the world is for free. Let's not even talk about products, there's even a price to pay for hearing. So yeah, naturally, these days, I am all about paying the price. Everything has a tag on it.

It all started with the news that my son needed surgery. I walked into the doctor's office with concerns that his speech wasn't as developed compared to other kids his age, and I came out with a "glue ear" diagnose and a piece of white paper that said he was scheduled for surgery on Thursday that same week.

I came out of the doctor's office with a blank stare, completely bewildered. How did it get to this? - I asked myself at the time.

Sure - it was only "minor" surgery. But every mother would concur that nothing is minor when it comes to our kids. The thought of my boy being unconscious and operated on with an IV stuck into his little hand in a scary operating room was just too much for me to bear. And of course, being the overdramatic person that I was, I couldn't hold the tears back at all.

Just before the operation, the nurses rolled his bed into the operating room and my son held on to my hand for dear life. He was so scared that I couldn't see color in his face at all. I'm sure we traumatized the crap out of that poor little kid. But it had to be done, what choice did we have? He woke up from surgery kicking, screaming, demanding that we take out the IV, and he ended up taking it out himself with blood splattered all over the place. (I know, eww right?)

This is what we had to bear: trauma, cost, 2 weeks of being away from home, the expenses of being in a foreign country, exhaustion, and additional costs of changing our tickets (which were promo tickets!).

But when weighed with what we got in return: my son's hearing back and precious time with both my kids while we were stuck in Singapore waiting for my son to recover post surgery. Fourteen priceless days with both my son and daughter, uninterrupted by work or people or television or anything!

Now if that's not well worth it, I don't know what is...