Medical care in Dubai

All I can say is Wow!!!  Sure, we have it good in Canada with free medical care.  But the care here is second-to-non (except the fact that if you don't have insurance it is very expensive).  I love private, profit-making medical.  Today at work I lost my vision for about 10 minutes in one eye.  I got back my vision but did not have peripheral vision.  I was very dizzy.  They took me to the school nurse.  She checked my blood pressure and my blood sugar level.  After about 45 minutes my vision returned to normal.  But, they still wanted me to get checked out.  I went in the school bus (lol!  Literally a big yellow school bus) to a medical center.  I was seen by an opthamologist right away.  She found nothing wrong with my eyes (I knew she wouldn't).  She then made me an appointment with a neurologist.  I could have gotten same-day service (an hour after seeing her), but I decided to go tomorrow.  I could feel a migraine coming on.  Tomorrow I will see a neurologist who will do some kind of Doppler thing and an MRI.  I figure that losing my vision was a new sign of a migraine coming on.   I spend the rest of the day in bed.  There were men in the apartment above me jackhammering away.  Today of all days they decide to work. 

The pad

This is the outside of my building.  If you merge the two pictures with your eyes you will get the whole building.  It is very loud here.  We are right by the airport and there are planes that land every 90 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  They are so close that I feel like I could almost touch them.  There are about 40 buildings just like mine.  It is a very large compound.  There are also hundreds of villas. 

This is our bedroom.  Evan's bed isn't up yet.  It will still be roomy enough to have two beds in the room.  There is a huge built-in closet that will house all our stuff.  I don't have a light in the ceiling yet.  I have to call maitenance to install it.  So, I am temporarily using a light I bought for the living room.

 

This is the master bathroom.  It is very large.  Notice how there is only a

half-wall by the shower.  The floor gets SOAKED every time I shower.  Thakfully

there is a drain on the floor so I can just push all the water into it.  I also mop the floor

after every shower so my floors are also cleaned daily.  It is a two-for-one deal.

 



 

 This is part of the kitchen.  There is no dryer because most people

hang their clothes outside to dry.

 

This is another part of the kitchen.  It is a gas stove.  I

already burnt some garlic bread because I am not used

to cooking with gas.  There is also a lock and key on the

fridge for some reason.

 

The guest bathroom.  All the counters in my place are granite and

the tiles are so nice.

 

The living room.  I hate how it is set up right now.  I had it the other way around with the

couch on the opposite wall.  But, when the guy came to install the TV and internet hook-ups

he said the outlets weren't working on that wall.  I have to call maitenance to get them working

so I can change the room around to the way I like it.  I just bought a beautiful TV to go on the entertainment unit.  It will be fab!

 

This is the dining area.  The cut-out is the kitchen.  Please don't comment on the dying flowers.  I refuse to throw them out until Paul gets here.  They remind me of how much I love and miss him.  Also, notice the can of spray on the counter?  I had to use that the first week for all the cockroaches that I had.  Thankfully, once the cooker was installed I didn't get anymore roaches.  I must have killed about 10 of those buggers. 

 

This picture was taken from my terrace.  You can see how close the park is.  Evan will love it there.  There are so many kids there at night.  It is fun to watch.

 

 

 



Week 5 and 6

Lots of exciting things have happened these last two weeks. First off, my boys are coming next week!!!! I am so excited. This time next week we will all be together. Second, I moved out of the hotel finally. After 5+ weeks in a hotel, I finally can make my own meals, do laundry, make my own bed etc. I feel like I am slowly settling into MY life in Dubai now.

This past week I was able to do a few things that I need to do in order to sponsor Paul and Evan. First, I had to go for my medical. This was a disgusting place to go. You walk in healthy and you walk out with some disease I am sure. It was so gross. The men all sit on one side and the women on another. The men just look across the aisle at you like you are a piece of meat. My blood was taken to make sure I don't have HIV. Then, I had a chest x-ray done to make sure I don't have TB. It was all very fast. After the medical, I walked down the hall to do all the paperwork for the ID card. They take prints of each finger, the palm and the side of your palm. It was so interesting.

School is going well. I have parent-teacher interviews this week. It will be interesting to meet a lot of the parents. We also have the KHDA coming for a few days. This is like a governing body that inspects schools and gives them a rating. It is a very serious occaision. Thankfully this week they are coming to train the inspectors, not rate the school. It is good for our school because it will give us some good feedback before the official visit in January. I had my first evaluation this week. It went really well and I still have my job (YAY!). We get evaluated 3 times a term (2 terms a year). The average rating you get from these six evaluations will determine your bonus and salary raise for the next year.

I forget what else I wanted to write about.  I guess that is it for now.  The next post will have some pics from my new pad.  Until next time...
 

Week 4 is done!

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!  Today is a sad, sad day in Dubai.  Today is Evan's birthday and he is not with me yet.  It breaks my heart not to have him and Paul here with me.  I know that he will have a special day in Canada and my family will get to celebrate with him. I have spent most of the day in bed, watching movies and feeling sorry for myself.  But, I will go out tonight and celebrate this special day.

Things here haven't changed much.  I am still waiting to get into my apartment.  It should happen this week.  Apparently, they get the keys on Sunday.  Then, they have people lined up to clean the apartments and set up the new furniture.  We should be in this week sometime.  I will believe it when I see it.  I am still waiting for my residency to be approved so I can sponsor Paul and Evan to come.  This should happen this week.  Then, I will have to fill out the paperwork for them to come.  They said I could put a rush on it and pay a little bit so that they can be here sooner.  We will be doing this.  I need them here now. 

I had a great week.  My classes are starting to settle.  YAY!  I saw two new malls this week.  There are 68 malls in Dubai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shopping_malls_in_Dubai).  I have never been to a city that has so many malls.  In comparison, Toronto has 1 million more people in the city and has 5 malls.  The malls here are usually open until midnight.  I am amazed at how late people shop.  When the sun sets, people come out.  It is not unusual to see families out at 11 at night shopping.  The mall I went to this week was on a marina.  We had a great Thai meal on the marina and enjoyed Sheesha after.  Jamie Oliver has a restaurant at this mall that I want to try soon.  After dinner we were walking through the mall and saw one of those big balls that you go in and walk on the water.  I have always wanted to do this, so I did.  What fun!!!  It is hard work though.  I tried so hard to walk in it and kept falling.  I was in there for 10 minutes.  It was so sweaty and hot in there by the end that it started steaming up.  I will post a video later but it takes a long time to upload it to my blog. If you watch the video, watch how fast I got out of it.  I have never been so happy to get fresh air.  After the big ball we went out for some ColdStone ice cream.  YUMMO!  I had the cake n' shake.  It tastes just like cake batter but is a shake. 

The last thing I will share about this week is that we had to wait 3 hours for a cab to come.  YIKES!  I called a cab to pick us up at school at 3:15.  I called 4 times to see where the cab was.  Apparently we were high priority to get picked up.  Well, it never showed up.  The whole school was empty except one lone security guard.  Another teacher texted a teacher friend to see if she could pick us up.  She said she would.  So, we went outside to wait.  While we were waiting we saw a cab drive by.  We flagged him down and he stopped.  He said that he didn't get a call to come get us.  I never got a call back that night from the cab.  Guess they didn't want to come get us.  The school is not in a very good location for cabs and it can take a long time to get one.  But, this was ridiculous.  Oh, Dubai and your craziness.  You will have to come and experience this amazing city.  Usually the cabs are good and cheap.  Until next time...