Out and About in Dubai

Hubby and I went to the gym last night and all was going well until the chicken club sandwich in my tummy interfered with the treadmill running. I guess 4 hours between eating and exercising wasn’t enough. I moved over to the stairmaster which seemed to help alleviate the abdominal cramps.

Little did I know that my problems would be the least of my worries as 10 minutes into my stair work-out, DB comes alongside me almost double-overed in pain. He said he was stretching after his run and all of a sudden felt this acute pain shoot up his leg into his lower back. He could barely walk, bend over, or sit let alone tie his shoelaces. Said he had never been is so much pain before and that he felt faint. Yikes!

Trooper that he was, he still insisted that we keep our dinner reservations at the Madinat where I had made reservations for the Wharf restaurant that night. I had been dreaming of grilled lobster in lemon pepper sauce…mmm.

Poor DB! He couldn’t move his lower back at dinner and it was a struggle trying to bring food from the dinner plate to his mouth without dripping sauce all over himself! Two gin and tonics didn’t seem to help much either. But I must say that his grilled scallop appetizer was amazingly delicious and my grilled lobster with fresh thyme did not disappoint except maybe they could have give me 2 servings instead of one!

On the way home, it took DB almost 5 minutes to get into the car as he couldn’t sit down in the front seat without grabbing onto the car roof and cautiously lowering himself down….very…very… excruciatingly…slowly. I’m going to skip over him trying to get into bed - oh! it was awful to watch and listen to grunts of pain. You never realize how much you use your lower back muscle until it’s of commission.

DB refused to go to the doctor but when he woke up this morning stiffer and more in pain than before, he relented.

Anyway, today I made an appointment for him, then took him to the the doctor who diagnosed him with a badly pulled muscle and gave him a prescription of muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory drugs. Interesting thing about healthcare in Dubai - you pay the co-payment (25 Dhs for us which is about $7) and then whatever drugs are prescribed is given to you for free!

Well, I am glad to report that the prescription drugs worked like a charm. DB is now able to stand and sit without any pain and hopefully he’ll be better in a couple days and can come off the (highly-addictive) drugs.

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