My mom has been complaining for a while that her eyesight has deteriorated. Now even with glasses, she can't seem to see clearly and do any reading at all. I already prepared for the worst as she is already 67 and usually the seniors at this age are bound to have some eye problems irregardless of the severity.

Yesterday I accompanied her for some "hospital shopping" to "shop" for eye specialist. First stop, Tanjung Medical Center.

To no avail, the eye surgeon will only come in every 1st Sunday. So move on to the next stop.

Next stop Penang Adventist Hospital, oh well, it is closed on every Saturday. I only have that found out after I have my car parked and my mom has to walk some distance to the hospital building. That is indeed very strange.

Then, moving on to Gleneagles. It was a much larger compound and confusing setup which I had myself running up and down and left and right just tried to get my mom to register.

Only to find out that the surgeon / specialist is so super busy and is not available for appointments till Nov.

I have already almost decided to give up looking further. But somehow still driving on the Georgetown streets, and ended up in Loh Guan Lye Specialist Center.

Yep, this is indeed a very much customer oriented environment and they handled my enquiries very well.

And confirmed my mom that she has stage 2 cataract disease which explains why her sight is always being "blocked" by something.

There are 4 stages in Cataract and Stage 2 is just right for operation. You can't really do anything when it reaches stage 4 and going blind is inevitable.

Well, Loh Guan Lye being the creme of the crop in Penang Healthcare Industry, is charging a very exorbitant rate for the Cataract Surgery, RM3k+ for each eye.

I am going to call up Lam Wah Eee Hospital to find out the pricing for the surgery, being a charity hospital and hopefully they charge only a fraction of that pricing form LGL.

This incident has made me comtemplate a lot of issues. And certainly, to be a support pillar to my mom I have to always exhibit a very calm and collected nature, I can't be shaken by this as I have to be there for her. Sometimes I wonder how much more I can take it. Especially when she always tells me, she wants to die so she won't give trouble to me. Just like my dad.

No matter how many times i have told her to be strong, she just can't seem to heed this advice. Lord, heed my prayer. I just can't afford to let another loved one go.

Sighz.