For more than a year, I have been putting up with pain in the arch of the foot. This is a throbbing ache that is centred right in the curve of the arch. For most of last year I ignored it. I had other health issues – the uterine issues etc. But over the last few months, it got steadily worse. I put up with it during the Japan trip and during the Malaysian trip. But over December and January, it got so bad that I was limping some days, and even when I was sitting and not putting any weight on the foot, I still got a burning throbbing localised pain. The spot was about the size of a 10-cent coin but gosh, it burned!

Google told me that very likely this was a case of plantar fasciitis. I guess this means orthotics – feet support via insoles etc. And ugly granny shoes for life. Though to be honest, I had not been wearing pretty heels for the longest time already since my feet are a cross between elephant legs and pig trotters. Pig trotters do not go well with kitten heels and stilettos. So I have been content to live in my Crocs for many years until recently when I ditched them for sensible but a tad more fashionable Hush Puppies sandals and shoes.

My parents were concerned about the huge ginormous stumps I have for calves. And to be honest, I was growing pretty obsessed (and depressed!) with comparing my legs with the legs of other women. It seemed that even the most obese people I see on the streets have thinner calves than mine! Everyone who has a look at my legs usually has a reaction of horror, sympathy and fascination. Most ask if they can poke it. So it must be bad. But no, its not water retention either. They are just incredibly bulky and heavy.

It could be due to:

a) hypothyroidism (which fits my symptoms)
b) medication (one of the known side-effects of my hypertension meds is to have swollen legs) or
c) I’m just fat.

The internist that I see in the hospital just raised his brows, measured my calves (these are body stats I would be better off not knowing) and wrote it in my notes. A colleague said: maybe the chi is not moving through your legs. Acupuncture might help.

While that kinda makes sense, I still do not have enough confidence in TCM, so no acupuncture (hate needles) and I opted to put my faith in mainstream meds and see an orthopaedic surgeon instead, figuring that maybe the guy can tell me what’s wrong with the cankles and fix the pain in the arch as well.

So last week, I went off to the consultant. And what a nightmare that was!

Before I could tell him more, he had flexed my foot, knuckled the arch which made me wince and yelp, and then swivelled his chair, plucked a model of skeleton foot and told me what’s wrong with my foot. Plantar fasciitis, he said breezily and added the words that ran my blood cold: “I need to give you and injection.” Note how he phrased it: “I. Need.” Nothing in there about me, the patient but everything about him the doctor.

“What? Now?” Panic set in.

“Yes. Now.” I could have sworn he had an evil glint in his eye.

I was caught off guard. I had heard about such injections but thought they were meant as a last resort. Clearly not for this guy. He was literally hurrying me to lie down so he can stick the needle in.

Did I have second thoughts? You bet! Third and fourth even. Everything in me screamed no. But like a rabbit caught in the cross-hairs of a gun, I just stayed helpless. Every question I feebly asked was heartily tossed aside in the ‘pshaw-I-know-best-cos-I’m-the-doctor’ tone I hate so much.

“Er, would this be painful?” Pathetic, stupid question, I know.

“No, of course not,” went he. “You went though childbirth, this is nothing.” Liar.

“Shouldn’t I see a podiatrist? Get an insole done first?” I blabbered in desperation.

“No need. This one, plus physio, will cure it. 95% are cured in three months!” Is it me or does he sound like a used-car salesman trying to push a lemon sale? And what happens to the other 5%? I never found out.

At no time did he tell me what exactly he would be injecting into me, explain the pros and cons etc. My thoughts were flying all over the place and I felt railroaded into the examination table. Mostly, I think I was just paralysed by fear.

“Wait. Have a look at my legs. Why are the ankles so swollen?” I blurted.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell you why. Could be due to your medication,” brushed off the doc. Huh? My numero uno reason in seeing this guy was just answered, just like that. What a waste of time. He barely looked at my pig-elephant legs.

I lay down reluctantly, terrified. I wanted to sit up to watch but he said no. “Otherwise I might have to stick you twice, haha!” Evil laughter.

Let me tell you now, for the record, having gone through childbirth five times, the last two of which were drug-free, that childbirth is officially NOT the worst sort of pain in the world. Having a needle stuck in your foot and cortisone (he finally told me at the end, after it was all over) slowly injected in – is really right up there in the torture stakes.

That sort of stupid myth is perpetuated by doctors like him (who has never gone through childbirth by the way, so what does he know?) who tell cowering patients like me, that sort of lie. As he stuck the needle in and slowly pressed the plunger, I lay wide-eyed, in shock and in so much pain that I uttered strangled cries through gritted teeth, breathing fast and shallowly. It seemed to go on forever. At one point the nurse who stood beside me and gripped my hands (bless her) asked in concern: You’re not allergic to anything right?

Allergic to what? I didn’t even know what was going in! Maybe I looked like I was going into anaphylactic shock? Towards the end, I remember telling the doctor a bit hysterically: You’ve got to be kidding me! Oh you’re joking. This is bad. This is so bad. This is worse than childbirth!

Tears were in my eyes and after he had finished, I just lay there, in semi-shock. I couldn’t seem to bring myself to sit up and function. I think I was in a daze, can’t remember what I blabbered about. I went on auto-pilot mode after that, feeling a bit blank and wondering what the heck did I just put myself through?

For the first five minutes, I could gingerly walk. But after half an hour, the sole and the arch area had swelled up and was so tender I could not put any weight on it. I was supposed to take the train to pick Cait up from school. But I didn’t think I could make it and had to ask my mom to do this instead while I took a cab home.

For the rest of the night, and the next day, I hobbled. I could not walk upstairs but literally crawled up. The kids thought it was a hoot to see mummy on all-fours. Today, it’s much better. The swelling has gone down. The old pain is mostly gone but it does come back in twinges and this morning, the burning sensation was back too.

Looks like I went though all that for nothing after all.

Well, there’s always… acupuncture. After that horror story I lived through, how much worse can it get? Right?

Third week of January and things are really getting back into the old busy rhythm. Training for the kids have started in earnest so we’re back to Saturdays being super-packed.

8.30am Send Cait to gym training in school
9.05am Owain has Berries class
10am Gillian has bowling practice in Chinese Swimming Club
11am Pick Owain from Berries
12pm Pick Caitlin from gym
12.30pm Pick Gillian from bowling
1pm Lunch
2pm Gillian, Cait and Owain have catechism class in church.
3.30pm Isaac has catechism class in church
4pm Swimming lessons for Cait and Owain
5pm Isaac ends Catechism class and takes a bus home by himself
6pm Finally everyone is home!

This weekend I’ll have to practise splicing myself into two or three. Cloning would also be a good option. Or does anyone have a teleportation device to lend me?

KH would be away on his ‘company cohesion’ trip in Bintan, officially paid for by the company and touted to promote bonding among employees, but what really is just a thinly veiled excuse for lots of wine, golf, karaoke and pool time! I am left to hold the fort. I will have to sit down and carefully work out the details on who goes where and where I have to be at what time etc. It will be a finely tuned plan of precision and balance but I think I can pull it off!

So our days can be crazy busy but I don’t mind this. Or more accurately put, I like it. I like the buzz and the energy. I like the pockets of downtime I get when I am in transit between picking up x and sending y to z class. It used to hurt my head to think about who goes where and when but now, it’s a cinch. By the end of the day, we’re all running on very flat batteries as the adrenalin winds down but we feel like it’s been very productive and that’s a nice feeling to have.

But you know, I really would not have it any other way. While there are days when I just want to tear my hair out and fervently wish (or yell!) for some peace and quiet, I know I would miss the constant swirl of activity that surrounds me now. I know I would feel a sense of loss when it goes – when the kids grow up, prefer the company of friends and leave home for families of their own. I guess I’ll have plenty of peace and quiet then but how lonely it will be!

Already I get a taste of this – on weekdays from 10.30am to 1.30am, the kids are off to school, the cat takes a siesta and the house becomes still and quiet. So quiet I can even hear cricket sounds, when the very air feels drowsy and slow. At first, I am gleeful: so quiet! No fights to referee! I can go online without anyone looking over my shoulder and bugging me to go on Facebook to farm! I can laze on the couch and read! I can even snooze without someone flinging herself on me and shocking me out of my sleep! Bliss!

But then, after the first 30minutes, the stillness gets to me. Like the princess on her bed of mattresses with a pea far beneath, I get a vague, indescribable sense that something is not quite right. A sense of restlessness that I am missing something. By 1.30pm, I am listening expectantly for the sounds coming round the corner – the high-pitched excited chatter that tells me the Holy Terror Trinity is home. Then the noise level slowly builds back to normal as one by one, the kids come home, the school bags are flung carelessly on the ground, my nagging starts and by evening, its full-blown chaos once again. And what is that I feel? That warm fuzzy feeling? It can only be… contentment.

They say that after 17 years of marriage that there is little that should surprise us about our spouses. Yet KH still manages to surprise me once in a while.

When you look at him, with his salt and pepper hair, his stern demeanor, his loud voice and Neanderthal ways, you’d never guess that underneath all that thick crust is really… a marshmallow!

Let me cite these two examples.

One Saturday last year, KH brought the kids to Catechism class. Usually he would just drop them off and go but that day he decided to hang around to wait for the kids to finish their class. An old woman came by and asked him where she could “collect money”. He asked her what she needed. Turned out that she always comes by faithfully every month to collect the monthly sum allocated to her by the folks at St Vincent de Paul but that month, she’d missed the collection date for some reason. Every month, the Society of St Vincent de Paul gives a sum of money to really needy households and families. It’s not a lot, about $70 per household. My mother volunteers for SVDP and she tells me how heartbreaking some of these lives are. For only $70 per person (slightly more for a whole family), it’s really not a lot but these folks really need every cent they can get. The money goes a long way to covering meals, groceries, utilities, transport, medical care and so on.

So this little old lady wanted to know where she could go to claim her monthly ‘allowance’. KH asked how much she usually got. He directed her to the church’s administrative office but just before she went in, he stopped her and fished out his wallet. “In case you missed the deadline and really can’t collect your allowance,” he told her, giving her $100, “Here’s something to tide you over till next month.”

She was surprised and grateful and thanked him profusely. When I told him how proud I was of him, he just brushed it off (though I could have sworn I saw a blush!) and told me simply, “What is $70 to us? But it means so much to her and she obviously needed it a lot. It was such a hot day and she was so old, yet she walked all the way to church just to collect $70.” As it turned out, the church was happy to give the old lady her allowance for the month and with KH’s contribution, it was more than decent for her for the month.

The second incident took place recently.

At the dinner table couple of nights ago Gillian was chattering away full of excitement for her upcoming trip to Malaysia with her class. But not all her classmates were going, even though this Sec 3 camp was compulsory.

One them was her classmate, whom I shall call Alice. Alice is from a single-parent family and her mom struggles to work to put food on the table and keep the family together. She’s not a close friend of Gillian’s but from time to time we hear stuff about her and we know the family has their share of problems. This time, Gillian said, Alice can’t go on the class trip because she could not get her passport renewed. Her mom says she cannot afford it.

KH was silent at first then asked: “How much does it cost to renew the passport?”

I said it was probably about $70 to $80 but might take a while and it might be too late since the girls were leaving next week already. KH said, “Look it up on the internet and let’s be sure. But if it’s not too late, I don’t mind sponsoring her renewal.”

Gillian looked at her father incredulously and I swore she saw him through new eyes. Dad, she said, you mean you’d actually pay for it? Pay for Alice to go? Really?

Turned out that it was not too late – just a bit of a touch and go, since both Alice and her mom had to do the paperwork by the very next day in order to meet the deadline. Both KH and Gillian spoke to Alice and her mom. Amid much excited squealing from both Gillian and Alice. Both Alice and her mom were very grateful and very touched. Apparently, Alice’s mom said she had made an appeal via the school’s parent-support group for financial assistance to renew the passport but no one came forward. We never got the appeal and had it not been for dinnertime conversation, we would never have known.

So KH sponsored the renewal fees and the passport photography which roughly came up to about $100 or thereabouts. He said pretty much the same thing he did before: “It’s just $100 – what is $100 really? We think nothing of $100 these days, spending it so easily. But just for the lack of $100 and no passport, a girl could not go to camp and enjoy her time with her classmates, what is that? It’s such a pity!”

Ah that man, he warms the very cockles of my heart sometimes. Okay, most times.

The next day, Gillian accompanied Alice to see the teacher, who was also amazed and touched that someone had stepped forward to do this for Alice. Alice and her mom got the paperwork done. And next week, she’ll be on that bus with the rest of her classmates.

So what is a hundred bucks after all? A sushi meal, a dress, a concert ticket? Yes all those but so much more. A girl’s happiness at being included, my daughter’s new sense of love and respect for her dad, an old woman’s meals for a month...

What can $100 buy?

To me, plenty.

Beginning of the new school year and we’re back to the harried life of waking at 5.30am, school runs, missing books, incomplete stationery, form-filling and orientation.

Owain started off on his first few days looking stoic and bored, grimacing everytime his trigger-happy camera-toting mother got in his face to take the umpteenth shot of him – well, he DOES look very cute in his new school uniform! Other than that, he seems enthusiastic and eager, having made a grand total of ONE friend (whose name he does not know) and pestering us to (a) send him to school on time (b) pack his bag for him and sign his forms and (c) choose the right storybook for him – he wanted to bring the bible at first, only for the reason that it was thick and impressive but I put my foot down. I wonder how long all this enthusiasm will last!

On the other hand, Isaac did not have a good start because both KH and I had refused to sign his report card for last year. He got an earful from me when I did sign and we agreed that there should be less slacking and more effort made in his studies for this year with the target of raising one grade at least this year. He can do much better, I am confident of that. I just need to find the right motivational trigger.

Caitlin got off to a good start, with gym training from the 1st day of school. Mr Lim has already warned us that this will only get more intense as training is ramped up over the weeks in preparation for the Nationals. We’ll have to make a decision soon re dance training too. On the academic side, the P3 girls were streamed into their new ability-based classes. They had ended P2 not knowing which class they would go to in the new year and when I asked last November, I was told the teachers had to meet to deliberate over this.

So on the first day of school, the girls were seated in the hall and names were called for the girls to join their classes. I was told that they did this in order of “the best to the worst” and Cait’s name being the 4th to be called, had been selected for Ixora, the best class. While I’m pleased and proud of her, I can’t help feeling that there’s got to be a better way of doing this. If Cait is right, and I have my doubts on whether she had exaggerated or not, then it must be quite morale-lowering to be told that you were in the bottom class. As mom to a kid like Gillian who struggled all through primary school and was clearly scraping rock bottom all the way, I can understand how painful this can feel – for the girls and their parents – to be told that your daughter was not among the brightest or the best. And to be told like this – in front of everyone? Ugh.

Gillian also started off well with being made science rep and environment rep for the class. The latter she protested that she did not sign up for and was arrowed to do it when she happened to raise her hand to open the window. The teacher pounced and said: “You have a pleasant and helpful face! You’ll do it then!” When I beamed in congratulations, she moaned, “But no one wants the environment rep job mom! I’ll have to lug down all the trash, all the heavy bottles, recycle them and so on you know!” Thankfully her good friend was also roped in as environment rep so the two girls will chatter while they recycle! Being in Sec 3, the school is kicking off the year with an overseas camp in Malaysia and she’s looking forward to that too. She’ll be back just in time to celebrate turning 15! So I’d say school started out on a bright note for her. Plus being in Sec 3 means she gets to lord it over the blur freshie Sec 1 girls!

On my end, I have moved office to a smaller space, a less private space. After five years of being in a room with a coveted window space, with a roomie who is so nice and accommodating, it’s going to take time to get used to this. I have been a bit depressed over this for a while but I’ve just got to learn to adjust, let go and move on. God always knows best and He’s given me this for a reason so I will learn to make the best of it and to move on.

Still, I can’t shake it but my gut feel senses rough seas ahead and I’m bracing myself for this. But I also try to be mindful and live in the moment and not worry too much over what has not happened yet. Even as I see dark clouds, there is also a lot to look forward to – bright patchwork pieces in life, such as my children’s gym and floorball competitions, bowling tournaments, lazy Saturday breakfasts with KH in the park, more of my favourite frothy K-dramas, sussing out new places to eat, meeting with old friends, travelling closer to home, hanging out more with my parents, perhaps a wedding(?) and just watching my children grow. I will hold these bright spots in my life and be thankful for all I have.

2009 has taught me these lessons (1) life can flip on its end overnight. Case in point – dad’s sudden but long illness with pancreatitis, (2) life means letting go and carving out a new path, leaving your crutches behind – my hysterectomy and my inner struggle with identity as a woman and a mother, letting go of any more babies that might have come my way and changing the way I see myself. Sometimes resisting only makes it harder. But if you let go and let God, maybe you’d have a different life, not a bad life, just one that is different.