International Medicine

We had our first experience today with a medical care here in UAE. On Wednesday Artem was walking down our stairs and pinched his middle finger on some wrought iron scroll work. He flinched a little bit and then motioned for me to pick him up, which I did and we went down stairs and ate our lunch, no a big deal at all. I was cleaning his hands and wiped his finger that he pinched earlier and he flinched. I looked at his finger and it had a small blood blister. I gave it a kiss and he was off to his slide and played while I finished the dishes. The next day (Thursday) it wasn't looking any better and we were out for dinner and Artem tripped and smacked his hands on the floor breaking his fall. He screamed and cried huge tears and shook his hand and it was obvious he was in a lot of pain from it. I thought maybe he broke the tip the day before. After a minute he wasn't hurting anymore and ran on his merry way. Friday rolls around and the finger isn't getting any better but now it is turning a funny white color on the tip and I told Randy we need to take him to the doctor. Friday's are UAE's Sunday, their holy day, so today we started looking for a hospital and we took him to one by the house, explained the problem and saw a doctor within one hour.

Our health cards aren't here yet, they arrive with our residence visas, so the hospital told us we would have to pay for it out of pocket and when our cards arrive we could get reimbursed. Wonder how much of a limit we have on the UAE visa???

We saw the general practitioner and he said Artem needed to be seen by a surgeon and they got us into the surgeon's office within ten minutes. The surgeon said the finger had a "hematoma" and it was infected because the blood didn't drain properly and would need to be cut open. They wrapped Artem up like a mummy, numbed his finger, and cut it open to drain it. Randy and I had to wait on the other side of the curtain while they did the procedure. Artem screamed and screamed, "mama, dada, all done." It lasted for less than five minutes and then we were able to go to him and calm him down. He's on an antibiotic now and I've got a follow up appointment that I will have to drive him to tomorrow to see how well it drained.

Randy got Artem's prescription filled and paid our bill for the doctors. One general doctor, one surgeon and surgical procedure, and one antibiotic cost us $205 US dollars. I have no idea what that would have cost us in the states.

Within an hour we went to our favorite Mexican food restaurant, Cantina Laredo, and Artem was happily munching on chips and salsa and playing with his truck. His hand doesn't seem to be bothering him despite the HUGE band aid wrap they have on it. Tomorrow we'll see how the healing is going. We have no complaints at all with the quality of health care we received by the hospital today and would use them again if, heaven forbid, we have to.