Today 2 of my important friends went for their wisdom tooth extractions. The first one is my future neighbor, Miss .. I am very tempted to spell out her full name. Somehow I just like to do that for some reasons haha. Guess not this time. Let her be X then. The 2nd poor soul is my landlady, Joanna. Different extraction procedures in different countries. X did hers in Singapore. Left bottom. Joanna did hers in South Perth, 2 bottoms each side, 2 top each side. God bless Joanna.
I was describing the procedures of the extraction of the wisdom tooth to her, according to my Singaporean experience. (I did all 4 in Singapore). I was dead wrong about it. Here, we do wisdom teeth extraction the Aussie Way. Full body anesthesia (I don't know what is the exact term for it). She got knocked out, missed the thrill of feeling the drilling in the mouth, tasting her own blood splashing around and hear the crack of the broken drilled teeth. Too bad. Having said that, every patient is supposed to nominate someone to fetch him/her after the operation. The hospital will call us when she is done and we go. We laughed when we heard that but realised it was serious business when Joanna was still giddy from fading anesthesia effects upon our arrival, very unsuitable to drive home.
Meanwhile X was also crying a bit at home but she got 7 days MC for that and I am sure she is secretly happy. Pat pat X. Get well soon both of you.
What happened was that, while Joanna was having her teeth extracted, she allowed us to put her car to good use and we didn't disappoint her. Due to the improved maneuverability, we managed to make our day as fruitful as possible. We went back to Belmont and get our medicare number. Then I got clever and spoke to the lady at the information counter and ask for directions to the nearest GP. Fortunately there was one pretty nearby. She praised my Liverpool jersey and says she supports the losing team too.
With that, we visited the GP by making a ten minutes walk. Another stroke of luck allowed us to see the doctor. We were supposed to make an appointment as they do not allow a walk ins. Somehow we got in, told that the consultation alone would be AUD$60. More about that later.
Dr Sita attended to us. Jen told her she was 24 weeks pregnant and needed a referral to the hospital. Dr Sita demanded a story. I blurted 3 words 'we just landed'. That's all she needed. She was friendly, humorous, meticulous in her work and manage to give us a much clearer picture of the medical system here. Then she ordered us to go back home and return with Jen's medical history in KK as she needed those to draft her referral. We did and were told we would be attending our first appointment at King Edward Hospital in Subiaco in probably 2-3 weeks times.
Now the good news. We managed to claim some money by going back to the Belmont Medicare. The consultation at Healthpoint Belmont Medical Centre cost us AUD$35.10 in the end, softening our blow.
The even better news. Dr Sita told us that we can go through the entire process at King Edward from now to the delivery of our baby with our bills fully claimable! That's brilliant news as our funds are really dwindling at this point with no jobs hunting (that'll come real soon when my luggage comes) in sight. If Dr Sita's information is accurate, it'll really be helpful, extremely helpful. Back of my mind, I was telling myself if this is true, I will be extremely grateful to Australia and did a mental note to payback the country in time to come by contributing.
If not for medicare, I'm dead, or going to be in time.
That's all the patients in the picture at our arrival time.
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