19/05/2025
Buying Time – A Day at the Hospital
As usual, it starts the same way.
Bring Mum to her nephrology clinic appointment. First stop: Unit Hasil. Take a queue number. Wait.
30 minutes if you’re lucky. An hour if you’re not. Sometimes more.
Then, up the stairs. Hand over the appointment card to the Nefro Clinic. Mum goes through the basics—blood pressure, weight, and maybe a quick chat with a nurse. Then we wait again in another room, this time for the actual doctor.
Four to five hours, give or take. Usually more. Never less.
You sit there, watching people come and go, all in the same quiet rhythm of patience and endurance. You scroll your phone, sip stale coffee, check the time, and wonder how long more. You catch your mum staring quietly into space, tired but calm. And it hits you:
If only I could’ve gotten insurance for her earlier.
If only I had the means then, the knowledge, the foresight.
Maybe we wouldn’t be sitting here like this. Maybe she’d be in a more comfortable space. Maybe we’d have choices, not just routines.
They say insurance is buying time.
I never understood that—until I started spending so much of mine here.
So to anyone still thinking it’s not worth it:
You’re not just buying treatment.
You’re buying freedom. Dignity. Energy.
And yes, precious hours you’ll never get back.
Cherish your time. Invest in it.
Because one day, you’ll realize it’s the only thing you really needed more of.
