Sylvia's Journal

It’s Axel again, posting for Sylvia who is still locked down at the City Hospital. The doctor saw her this morning, just before I arrived with coffee, and decided to keep her immobilized for another night. She opined that she was still very groggy, and certainly not very mobile, and that it was probably a good thing. Indeed her knee is not very flexible yet, although she has been trying to do the prescribed therapy while incarcerated; walking around, flexing her toes and bending her knee. I had, on going to jailbreak her this morning, fantasized about taking her to some fancy waterhole on the beach and let her veg out under a palm date tree, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Chuck’s brother Tim has recommended the Russian Beach – so named because the Russian tour bus drops the Russians off there to turn pink – and the Aquaventure Park where you can swim with dolphins in the shadow of the totally weird Atlantis Hotel, a giant pink, pseudo Taj Mahal place on the giant palm-shaped island off the coast. Not thinking that Sylvia will be up for much swimming, I have a date palm tree with full time beer service in mind. I think that would be perfect for finishing off the last 30% – you Kindle readers know what I’m talking about here – of Anna Karenina which I fear will end up in the Russian winter being very depressing and therefore requiring an atmospheric antidote to balance things out. Dubai certainly provides the opportunities to move, even if temporarily, into la-la land.
And speaking of la-la land, I find it pleasantly ironic to be reading Tolstoy here in this land of wealth built on what Tolstoy would label something other than work. Tolstoy uses his writing to rail against the idle rich, those who make obscene amounts of money without any physical toil, patriarchal authority and those who don’t think much about what’s happening around them. He’d have much to rail against here I’m afraid. We in the United States have increasing income inequality, but to see it really manifested in physical form you have to go a bit out of your way. Here in Dubai the excess is palpable in the buildings, the shops and the news. Even a whole floor of the hospital is assigned to VIPs. I do wonder what Dubai’s peasants – the Bangla, the Pakistanis, the Sri Lankans – feel about it all.
Pushing aside my Tolstoyan reactions to Dubai, I look forward to springing Sylvia from the joint tomorrow and getting out into the holiday atmosphere of Dubai as Big Eid approaches. I’ll be at the hospital bright and early – 7:30 – for my first session of physical therapy for my shoulder. Then we’ll see what happens.

it is hard to write under the influence of general anesthesia, even when it is wearing off. So I asked axel to make the entry for today.
(Context: Sylvia had an adequate but not entrancing post-op meal and Axel brought in sushi from around the corner) Sushi dinner and room service. Only sake missing.
While Axel had his MRI I was checked in. Here in Dubai, out-patient procedures are in-patient procedures and I too got to spend the night in the hospital. Right now I’m too tired even to dictate and Axel will continue the saga.
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It was another day of medical tourism in Dubai. I really much more enjoyed the regular style of tourism that we had with Chuck and Anzie. I wish that fun flow of discovering the corners of Dubai hadn’t been so interrupted with the restoration of our bodies as there is evidently much more to see and do here and many more interesting people to meet. For instance my shoulder doctor is going to spend the week of Eid in the desert, near the Empty Quarter, a state of being rather than a place. It’s the Arabian version of the wild open spaces, but there are no deer or antelope playing there, only stars, silence and brilliant sun. Oh, and did I mention that it’s out of the intensity of Dubai?
But I’m getting ahead of the story of today, which really began with my MRI. That was a bizarre mix of a long explanation of how deeply troubled Lebanon was with the political and legal issues surrounding the investigation of Hariri’s assassination and Kings of Leon blaring away while the MRI hammered it’s own tune.
Sylvia’s two-fer operation on knee and carpal tunnel got underway later than expected, but hey, it’s a busy hospital with lot’s of patients as is evidenced by the very busy lobby, part of the pattern language of a very alive place. While she was in the operating theater, I struggled with getting my Mac’s health back with a new CD/DVD drive, another victim of the Kabul dust bowl climate. When she emerged at 3 PM Sylvia was doubly out of it with both local and general anesthesia.
At 4 PM, I went to see my doctor who opined that I needed a rotator cuff operation. I must admit I was rather surprised having thought that some therapy would do the trick as it had some time ago, but rather happy it wasn’t going to happen immediately. But I had to admit, on seeing the MRI pix, that another part had worn out and needed to be repaired. The doctor, who had seen a lot of hockey shoulders in Toronto, thought that the whole mess wasn’t so severely compromised as to be a short-term fix.
So tomorrow I retrieve Sylvia from the hospital and we’ll have a sort of recovery lunch before heading back to rest our bones for the next stage of the medical tour: physical therapy.