A lot has happened since Eid break, which was over 4 weeks ago. Every single weekend there has been a student event on Thursday night on campus, many put on by an organization I advise, so naturally I've been spending my Thursday evenings at campus staying well past working hours. Unfortunately, this pattern has no end in sight (at least for the near future). On the bright side, I'm spending two weekends in a row in Dubai so I get at least a small break from the usual over-working.
The first weekend we were back, I played in my first rugby tournament. It was here in Doha, at the rugby club right next to my compound. Doha Ladies Rugby has two teams, the Oryx and the Trojans, and our teams came in first and 2nd to last. The fact that we have two teams who regularly compete is awesome. We train as one big team and split up only for tournies. The group is fun, and training keeps me in shape. Anyway... two games into the tournament, I dislocate my shoulder. It either didn't pop out fully, or popped right back in, so I was like "Just tape it and I'll feel fine!" So I go back in and play another game, during which I do the same thing 2 or 3 more times. The final time was enough to stop me. I had to have someone else relocate it this time, and I was done for the night. My first visit to the hospital here, an xray, several days of pain, a trip to the fancy new hospital connected to the Aspire Academy, and an MRI later I find out I tore a ligament in my shoulder. No bone damage. No tissue damage. No rotator cuff damage, just a clean tear to the ligament. I consider myself quite lucky actually. The person I'm seeing right now is an American doctor who happens to be a shoulder specialist. The Aspire Academy has full imagine, training, therapy, and even surgery facilities so it's the best possible scenario. And it's all covered by my insurance. Three and a half weeks later, I'm feeling about 90%, and I've got 1.5 weeks left before I get back out on the field for Dubai 7's. I know, it sounds crazy, but they say I have a 90% chance of re-dislocating it so why not get that out of the way now, right? Then I'll have surgery and be fully recovered. I'll wear a shoulder brace to decrease the chances of dislocation, but this tourny is a big deal and I wouldn't want to miss it!
The experience of having to go to the hospital and trying to figure out medical stuff in a foreign country was as close to culture shock/home sickness as I've gotten since I've been here. Funny enough, I have a knack of doing that in new places that I move to. My freshman year of college I shattered a bone in my hand only week after I arrived to school. At least that was in an American city, but it was still very traumatic for me. And now I've moved here to Doha and done pretty much the same thing. I guess now I'm very familiar with the hospital and health care here to use for the future or to impart on others. And it made me rely a lot more on friends and coworkers than I had previously been comfortable doing, which is always a good and important lesson to learn.
The timing of this whole thing was ideal, though, because only a few weeks after the incident, my dad arrived in Doha. He now works for the Qatar Foundation as the Assistant Vice President for Staff and Student Services. He's been chronicling the beginning of this new journey in his life on his blog (linked at the side of this one under my links tab) and I highly suggest you check it out. This just after the release of his most recent book, always a good read, called "Deeper Learning in Leadership" which anybody interested in the field of leadership or leadership development should read. Anyway, the first weekend we spent shopping for decorations for his place and getting him generally settled in. The night he flew in I met him at his place with a baked ziti in the oven and open arms. We don't see each other much during the week, but that's mostly due to the fact that we're both so darn busy that it makes it hard to find time. Weekends are already becoming our hang out time. It's interesting to see my dad's reaction to a lot of new stuff because even thought I've only been here for a short 3 months, I've already become accustomed to a lot of things that I first found strange or interesting. It's actually quite fun to see everything around me with a fresh perspective, being his. Every once in a while he busts out with "can you believe where we are... what we're doing... how we live" and the thought strikes me. That's a question I hope he doesn't stop asking. It certainly keeps things in perspective.
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