My mom arrived in Abu Dhabi today to spend the holidays with us. We are all so excited to have her be here! Her plane got in late in the evening from New York and she’ll be here through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s before flying out on January 5th.
I’m looking forward to showing her our new home, enjoying the holidays and having some adventures!
I have been wearing contacts for years. I think I started in High School so that makes it almost 20 years now. I know how to put them in and take them out and can do it without a mirror and in the dark if I have to. Point being – it’s a routine, no big deal thing.
So….when I woke up on the morning of the 21st and put my contacts in and everything was STILL blurry – I was NOT initially concerned. I blinked a few times, took them out and rinsed them again, reinserted them, blinked a few times and thought – what the heck??? I have back-up glasses that I usually wear at night and first thing in the morning with the same prescription as my contact lenses and they were fine so what is going on??
I figured that the lenses must be dirty (they are the throw them out every two weeks kind, that I usually leave in for about 3-4 weeks or until they feel yucky). So – I thought it was probably time for a new pair. I threw out the “bad” ones and took out a new pair (being VERY careful to put the right contact into the right eye and the left contact into the left eye since they are two different prescriptions). I got them in and things were STILL blurry. I blinked, I squinted, I blinked. STILL blurry! What the heck? Now I started getting panicky. I figured I must’ve developed a degenerative eye disease that came on while I was sleeping and is only affecting my eyes with contacts in. Perhaps the temperature has affected my eyeballs or my contacts? Maybe my corneas are changing shape rapidly? Maybe the lenses were bad? I threw them out and tried another pair. SAME thing! I threw THEM out and tried another pair. SAME thing! That’s it – something is wrong with me.
I put my glasses on and was thankful that I was able to see fine with them. I located my list of embassy-recommended doctors and called the ophthalmologist. I got an appointment for the next day. I hoped my eyes wouldn’t worsen anymore.
I brought along my contact boxes and contact case and of course wore my glasses. I waited forever before entering the “investigation room”. Turns out it was just the “exam” room. (They have different words for stuff here that can throw you for a loop – I was curious why they had an “investigation room” in the eye doctor office. What do they investigate? Apparently, you and your eyes.)
So…they checked out my eyes and did the routine eye chart stuff and had me put my eye against the machine while they flipped around dials. Everything was okay so far. Then I went back to wait and wait and wait. Eventually I saw another doctor. He asked some questions about my general eye health and then sent me to another waiting room around the corner to wait some more. Eventually, I saw ANOTHER doctor. He asked me more questions and eventually determined that I needed to see a Contact Lens Specialist. So after 2+ hours there (with Cameron in tow), I had to make ANOTHER appointment for the next day.
I went home confused, frustrated and concerned.
But, the next day I went back with my contact boxes, contact case and glasses on.
I waited not so long this time until I saw a NEW doctor. He asked me some questions and examined my eyes. He determined the prescription I should be wearing for my contacts and asked to see my boxes. Turns out my prescription was the same. Huh??
Then – he showed me the little “L” on one of the boxes and said that I needed to make sure that I put the “L” contacts in my left eye.
Ummmm – excuse me?? I KNOW that I wear a stronger one in my left eye than in my right eye because my left eye is worse than my right eye so I don’t bother to check for the little “L” anymore. I know I didn’t just switch my contacts. I mean ….come on – that should be an obvious thing to check right? right???
You have GOT to be kidding me!!!
I sat like an idiot and laughed for at least 3 minutes in his chair.
Yeah – I totally just switched my contacts. One of the earlier doctors asked if I did and I told him that I KNEW what contacts go in which eye. (duh – I’ve been wearing contacts for 20 years)
So…3+ hours of my time and $100+ of my money to find out that I put my contacts in the wrong eyes.
Well – thank goodness there’s nothing REALLY wrong with me.
There is this huge sports complex near us that’s called Zayed Sports City. I’ve probably mentioned it before. They have a bowling alley (with 40 lanes!) and an ice skating rink, a gym, a bunch of football pitches (soccer fields), tennis court facility and a bunch more stuff. We attended an Open House where there were lots of different activities going on.
You could try out a new game called Padel Ball (combination of tennis and squash I think?? with a net and a smaller racket and three walls). You could do the bouncy house and bouncy slide (INSANE – with horrible supervision) or watch people do Zumba (INSANE – with kids running across the stage and parents ignoring them while the instructor tried to step over them – no your child is not cute on the stage while someone is up there – they are a danger – ugh!) and TONS of people. Bowling and Ice Skating were free (but TONS of people so the kids skipped that) Alexander spent most of the time playing “Football” (soccer).
The kids had fun trying out new things though so that was cool. For whatever reason I only took pictures of padel ball.
Isabella’s Girl Scout leader is awesome (you are – Christie!) and she is always planning such fantastic activities for the kids. As one of our projects, the kids were able to participate in “Clean Up Arabia”. We arrived with a ton of other people to help out and got on these tiny boats and zoomed across the water to Lulu island. This island used to be open to the public but isn’t anymore. There is garbage that has washed up along the water because people here seem to not know how to throw things away in garbage cans. It’s frustrating. They just toss things aside because they know someone will come along and just clean up after them. The water can be quite a mess from people throwing things off their boats too.
All of these pics were taken by Christie….
Lots of people were waiting around for awhile until we were able to set off.
Funky looking houseboat??
Coast Guard was there just in case.
Eventually we were off. Here’s some of our group above. We all got hats for participating too!
When we arrived at the beach, you could see some of the garbage. Ropes and rusty-nail-covered boards.
The girls each had a bag to start collecting. There’s Bella in the middle!
Even though the sign said “no trespass” – Bella & Zoe took to garbage collecting anyway.
Even Alexander came along to help. He was convinced there was a shipwreck along these rocks because he found an old crab pot, a couple life jackets and tons of broken wood. I’m glad he didn’t find any bones! But at least it kept him busy cleaning and actively imagining what could have happened!
The girls managed to fill up their bags with garbage before it was time to head back and on our trip back we still saw lots of garbage out there in the water! At least we made a dent in the clean-up of the area!
