The Boy's Ear Saga - the final chapter

Driving along the freeway I felt much more at ease. None of the butterflies that usually accompany me to the Red Cross hospital seemed to have gotten the memo about this morning's follow up appointment and, despite rush hour traffic, I enjoyed the trip to the children's hospital.


Maybe it was the free flowing traffic, or maybe it was one of my all time favourite songs, Johnny Clegg's Spirit of the Great Heart, turned up loud and enjoying some airtime on the radio. 


Maybe it was the Boy chatting to me and waving at pushy taxi drivers and declaring Johnny's unofficial South African anthem as "lekker!"


Maybe it was because I wasn't rushing, knowing the snail's pace at which the queue of waiting little patients would be moving. 


But mainly it was because I was pretty confident of a favorable outcome. 


The Boy has not suffered any ear infections since his grommet operation and his teacher is happy to confirm that he is a very chatty happy little boy, stuff I already know. His vocabulary is always expanding and he makes me laugh at a lot of the funny things he says.


We park the car and scoot off to the ENT ward, hand in the Boy's patient card and settle down to wait. And wait.


The Boy had insisted on bringing a fleet of his toy cars and begged to pack them out to play with. Soon he had an audience of interested little people helping to distribute his toys among themselves. Dubious as to whether he would get his toys back he started to whine. And whine. Luckily the moms were very intuitive and prompted their kids to return his toys. 


Safely packed away, the toys were swapped for peanut butter sandwiches, 2 apples, 2 lemon creams and some juice. He sat on the blue plastic folding chair swinging his legs and humming and munching while an avalanche of crumbs collected on his chest. Still having a tiny corner of his stomach not yet filled he discovered a chip on the grubby floor dropped by the child behind us. Before he could pop it into his mouth the child's fast thinking daddy offered him the last chips from their bag. He kindly polished that off too. Because, of course, we don't feed our child enough, just look at him...(!)


Finally we get to see the audiologist, it is the same lady we saw last time.
She explained the same game she needed the Boy to play with her - drop the blocks into the bowl when he heard "the birds singing". She held the hand-piece in front of his forehead and started the test. He must have been waiting for her cue because he seemed hesitant to drop the blocks, almost as if he couldn't hear her.

Mama starts to feel the butterflies waking up.

She decided to whisper some questions to him from behind her cupped hands. He answered all her questions and I was slightly more relieved. She seemed happy with that but not yet convinced. She asked a colleague to come help her by distracting the Boy while she stood behind him and used her bird singing device.


Set on the lowest softest frequency she held the thingamajig just behind and next to each ear and waited for a response from him. Mama was as tense as a tightrope and let out an audible sigh of relief each time he turned his head towards the noises. Hallelujah! He could hear it!
Then I get pissed. The audiologist is happy with his hearing however, since he didn't seem to grasp what she wanted him to do right at the start, she suggests I take him for a developmental assessment. According to her he should be understanding her requests. Now I know he is just fine, I have no concerns about his development, his teacher is a friend and she would fill me in on any concerns she may have.
The Boy is big for his age and is often mistaken for being older than he is but being just 3 and a bit I reckon he was just being polite and waiting on a cue from the therapist. She fills in a form for the developmental ward and attaches it to his file.

We go outside to wait again, this time to see the ENT doc. We don't wait too long. A good thing too as I've now had enough.
The doc checks the Boy's ears and declares him to be just fine. I resist the urge to hug him.
The receptionist nurse fills in the paperwork and declares, with a smile, that the Boy is indeed discharged. Elation!


We head down to the Developmental ward, me dragging my feet. Do we really need to do this?
The waiting room is much smaller with a handful of people waiting. The toys are strewn across the floor and the cushions on the benches are dirty, hardly what I want to sit on for any extended length of time. A fly lazily cruises the room.

I hand my file and form over to the receptionist and she informs me that processing my request and getting an appointment can be a lengthy exercise and she could probably only phone me back in about 6 months. Really? Fabulous.

I leave it at that and decide that if, and when, she phones me I'll decide what to do then.

The Boy and I head out of the hospital, leaving the doors swinging shut behind us.
My little Great Heart has done well, and hopefully his ears will remain trouble-free.

This chapter is over.

The End

Madness

She was mad. And frustrated once again.
She was opening up herself for criticism and the misunderstanding that she was perhaps ungrateful for all that she had been blessed with. Not the case. The frustration with her pathetic inability to make a decision based on various factors had her climbing the walls.


The need to acknowledge her feelings and write them down was felt when a sensitive nerve of the decision about having another child was pricked and raised one night.


"Do you really want to go through that again?"
He asked the question over a dinner of chicken vienna hot dogs and sweet mealies.
He was referring the whole luxurious state hospital experience.
He'd been reading the spreadsheet of hospital fees from various private hospitals she'd contacted for maternity costs, just to get an idea of what a birth would cost them outside of a state hospital and to do some research on various health insurance. They still had to pick their collective jaws up off the floor.


But that wasn't the core of her mad-ness. Or at least she supposed it was part of it, she mused.


She was mad that the decision to have a baby was, at that moment, directly linked to how healthy their bank balance was. That the gift of giving their son a sibling and themselves another child seemed to hinge on how much money they had, or rather, more accurately, how little they seemed to have.


She was mad that their business was still in its fledgling stage, and despite working back- breakingly hard, it was unable, at that stage, to provide enough of the stability they needed.

She was mad that she couldn't stretch her own salary sufficiently to cover all their monthly costs and give him the chance to build up their business capitol.

She was mad that she was too tired in the evenings to sit down and take on a larger freelancing load.

She was mad that she was not younger and could afford to wait a few more years for things to improve a little. Nearing her roaring (or was it raging?) forties her baby-making time was running out and her depleting eggs were heading ever closer to their expiration date. Hell, did she even have any left?


She was mad that so many more mundane things had to take priority over this big decision. 
Fixing her aging car, trying to play catch up on all their bills that just never seemed to want to be caught and killed, monthly necessities like school fees, utilities and a mortgage - all these stupid things seemed to be take precedence over being able to add another little person to their clan.


She was mad that she felt guilted into considering how others would possibly react to their "happy news".


She was mad that, if it were to happen, some of the people closest to them would throw up their hands, raise their eyebrows and whisper their concern to the others closest. "Why have another child when they can't even keep up with all their costs now!?" That made her particularly mad , and incredibly frustrated, so much so that she could weep.
Because she understood their concern.
Because it was what she also got anxious about.


And it wasn't that the family wouldn't welcome another itty bitty clan member, quite the opposite. It was just that these people had already helped them so much already and she would be mad with herself if she ever put them in a position that they felt they needed to step in and help her out yet again. 


She was madly frustrated when people encouragingly said "oh you will never have enough money so just go ahead and do it". That's all very well and brave but she's living in a very real world where diapers and daycare and formula don't grow on trees and {surprise!} cost real money. 


She understood that the world was experiencing hardships everywhere today, nearly everyone was struggling and her financial issues were probably just like a million others, nothing special.


But a decision to try for another baby was very special to her. As it should be.


She was mad because she felt they needed to make this decision soon and she hated being rushed.

She was mad because she is aware that tomorrow might find them in not such a bad place as today's but the decision has to be made now, a decision that would affect them always.

She was so mad because she was so frustratingly confused. That was the crux of her emotion.


And then she went into her toddler son's room later that night to check on him before taking herself to bed. Bending down, she kissed his forehead and breathed in the warm smell of sweet baby sweat. She gazed at his red lips pouting in sleep, dreaming of bananas in pyjamas and bold pirates, his arms flung across the pillows in complete abandon. And she knew she wanted a whole lot more of that.


Because - at the risk of sounding like a Visa card commercial - .... it was priceless. Beyond measure, invaluable.


And she was afraid that if she gave up the hopeful chance to have that all once again she would, indeed, be mad.