Mayo Clinic Day #6

Well this is our last day, so we spent it packing up, getting blood drawn and making up a gift basket for one of the nurses who was AMAZING! She was so sweet.
We drove around and took some quick pictures, it was the first time that we had been out and about besides a quick trip or two to Wal*Mart.

The drive home was eventful, the rental car (if you remember from Day 1, had a tire that went flat on us) was a major pain again. We plugged in the laptop to watch some DVD's and had the TomTom plugged in, all the sudden NOTHING? We for sure needed the TomTom to get us home, but did not really need the laptop since as homeschoolers ya know we were really driving the bookmobile...lol...and had enough books on board to educate a small army.

I called Avis car rental and asked for the closest rental location. We found one and explained to the WONDERFUL guy what had happened along the way. He told me that we were about 20 minutes away and he would have a car ready for us. Well what a car he had for us! It was a 2013 Toyota Camry with less than 300 miles on it. OK, so thanks for that car Avis rental man, 'cause now I want one. It was awesome! Comfortable, touch screen, smooth ride, loved how I could have my cell phone blue toothed through the speakers. I'm thinking that this guy gave me a very nice upgrade, we had a Ford Fusion base model before this car. The day that we picked up the original car they offered us a VW Beetle, but there was no way all our stuff would fit in that car, it would have been really cool to cruise around in, but no way.

We almost made it home, but I got so tired after going on a shopping trip to Woodmans that I just could not make it the rest of the way home. So we spent the night at a very nice Holiday Inn that we got for $68 on Hotwire.com. The sheets were flannel and the bed was so comfortable, I slept like a rock after taking a nice long hot shower. The child even commented on how nice his bed felt. I'm thinking that I might need a set of flannel sheets.

Feels so good to be home! Now we just wait on test results.
 

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Mayo Clinic Day 3 & A Lesson Learned

By now it has really sunk in, we are at Mayo Clinic! The child kept saying this over and over "I can't believe we are here! At Mayo Clinic."  I think I was still numb from it all and still wondering if I should really be here or not. Since I don't have cancer and I'm not 'dying of anything.' It has just been such a whirlwind of testing, meetings with the doctor etc. Today was the physical exam and let me tell you I've never been examined like that in my life before. I think that the doctor went over ever INCH of me! lol. He had me bending, stretching, moving and all sorts of stuff in addition to the exam.

Now for the fun stuff hahaha. I was suppose to get undressed for this exam and put a gown on. lol. Well the day before when I had the Holter Monitor put on me, I had a sports bra on (I know TMI for you guys! lol) so there was no way I could get my bra off, it was just hanging off my EKG leads...lol during the exam, which was very entertaining to see it flying all over the place when the doctor had me jumping around, bending and stretching all over the exam.

Then the doctor is still in the room typing away at the computer and he tells me to get dressed...lol. So I getting dressed with the doctor still in the room...weird! I could not for the life of me get my bra untangled from the leads...lol. Finally just had to unhook them, get dressed and rehook them up. Thinking back, I hope that the machine turned back on after we rehooked it up  :O(

The unsocialized homeschooler had fun playing piano several times while we were at Mayo Clinc, here he is playing at the Siebens Building, he also played in the Gonda Building. He drew a pretty good crowd. There were some really good piano players that we got to listen to over the week we were at Mayo.

I had more blood work and the most exciting part (NOT!) was I got a bottle of steroid pills to take, had to take 1 every 6 hours for 3 days. By the time I took the evening dose I was feeling pretty well, muscles no longer aching and we were up goofing around. We spent the evening at the library, which is connected by the Subway to our hotel and Mayo Clinic. I worked on a homeschool review for The Old Schoolhouse Magazines Review Crew and the child looked at the Star Wars book section. The library is GREAT! If we have to go back we plan to spend some more time there. We could have gotten a $10 library card while we were there since I was a patient at Mayo, but I was too cheap, we just stayed and looked at book for free  :O)  Spent more time swimming and relaxing. Sleep was not on the agenda due to the steroids. But WOW was I sure feeling good. Wish I could live on steroids, nothing feels so good.

One lesson learned. NEVER text people at 2 AM, just because you can't sleep does not mean that others are in the same boat! lol.  I sent a funny text to some friends and my sister-in-law at 2am. I said "If I was there I would drag you out to Bill's. I'm flying high on steroids...lol." Guess what? there are a lot of people that leave their cell phones on 24/7 and they got that message at 2 AM! But thankfully it got a laugh out of them all. My sister-in-law just grinned and rolled over and went back to sleep. Bill's is a restaurant that is a little 24 hour hole in the wall, with GREAT food (best fried cheddar cheese curds and grilled cheese sandwiches in the WORLD!) and lots of fond memories for my friends and I. Right Valerie, Lane, JT & David? Yes you can laugh now.

So we are half way through the week, still no answers, but we are making some wonderful memories. I am truly blessed to have an awesome almost teenage son to travel with, a wonderful husband who I can call at anytime when the steroids were making me crazy and  I was living on an hour or two of sleep and the world was crashing in on me. As well as my friends & church family that were up holding me in prayer. AMEN! God is good even in our sufferings.
2 Corinthians 12:10 “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” What does not kill us makes us stronger.
Moe

Mayo Clinic Day 2

After swimming in the pool with a bunch of kids for the evening, (I know, I know, unsocialized homeschoolers, you know how we are... LOL) the child fell into bed and slept like a rock. I sat and planned my Mayo Clinic Day 2. I had appointments all days long, seemed like a full time job going from here to there and everywhere. Started out with AM blood work, then an EKG (found out it's only called an EKG here in the US, the rest of the world calls it an ECG), more walking, did I say that we did lots of walking in the Subway? I then went and got a Holter Monitor is a portable device for continuously monitoring various electrical activity of the cardiovascular system for 24 hours, then I had to go to another area to get a 24 hour blood pressure machine. This machine took my blood pressure every 20 minutes from 10pm-7am and then every 10 minutes from 7am-10pm. I ended up with a very bruised arm from this machine and it was SOOO not comfortable to wear. I was instructed to stop moving completely and not talk when the cuff starts inflating. This is really hard...when the machine goes off every 10 minutes! lol. Needless to say I skipped the tours of Mayo Clinic and some sightseeing because I would not have been able to keep up with the group due to my stopping every 10 minutes for my machine. I saw a number of people wearing them too, so it felt good not to be alone :O) After that I had to run back to the hotel, because I had to use the restroom, oh, yeah forgot to say I was doing a 24 hour urine collection so that means going back and forth to the hotel day and night...LOL.

Funny thing happened, well, not funny hahaha at the time, because I was crying. But I was filling my 24 hour urine container when my blood pressure cuff went off and ya know, I was told to stand still and not move when that happens. So I hurried to set my urine container down on the side of the bathtub, and guess what? Whoever designed that bathtub made slanted sides, because my jug slipped into the tub and spilled all over. I cried and cried. All that work for nothing! My wonderful Doctor told me not to worry about it, he said "That just goes to show you are human my friend and you will be staying another day." So we had to stay an extra day to do another collection, thankfully it worked out that it was the collection BEFORE I started taking the steroids or that would have really goofed things up. We had some lunch at the hotel, the child had a $13.00 lunch (not sure if I have ever had a lunch that expensive!) Salmon with fruit chutney, mashed potatoes and gravy, asparagus and fruit cup. I had leftover pork roast, rice noodles and green beans.

On to the next appointment, I had to go take a class on how to use a Pulse Oximetry is a non-invasive method allowing the monitoring of the saturation of a patients hemoglobin. And I was suppose to sleep with that on for 4-8 hours, yes, oddly enough they expected me to sleep with all that stuff on me and that PINCHING blood pressure cuff that bruised me going off every 20 minutes while I slept. LOL! I did sleep on and off but it was not the greatest of sleep. I think that they should have done that test another night.

Back for more blood work at 4pm and in between all these running back and forth to the hotel room to the bathroom for my 24 hour collection...lol.

Relaxed around the pool talking with a dear homeschooling friend on the phone all the while the unsocialized homeschooler sat in the hot tub chatting with some military guys that were staying at our hotel while they worked on some medical training over at Mayo Clinic. Then he spent some time in the pool playing with some other kids. Then back to the hotel to flip through tons of channels that had nothing on them hahaha, we did find I think at least 4 channels that were in Arabic, which we found sort of cool to watch the ticker at the bottom of the screen since it runs backwards as Arabic is read right to left instead of left to right like English. Then off to bed.
Moe

My Mayo Clinic visit...

Wow, it's really been a whirl wind of activities since I had my colon resection in January 2013.
After having some odd ball symptoms that I have had for many years, my AWESOME surgeon decided that I needed an Endocrinology work up. After that 2 of my doctors told me that I needed to go to Mayo Clinic to get some things checked out since what they think I have is rare. I'm thinking to myself, "Mayo Clinic? It's not like I am dying or have cancer, what on earth am I going there for? Is this really that big of a deal?" The thought is that I have something called Cushing's Syndrome. After contacting Mayo Clinic they wanted to see me in 6 days! I hear that is super fast, normally there is a much longer waiting time.

 

  The drive up was pretty nice, our rental car was not the greatest for comfort and the back drivers side tire was leaking air. We decided to take a side trip on the way there. We stopped at Great River Bluffs State Park where we got to see 9 deer up close as we drove through the park, along with some very pretty bluffs.

As we drove through Madison WI, we waved to our favorite NPR Doc, Zorba Paster from the radio show "On Your Health".

Day 1: spent close to 2 hours with the doctor, taking history as well as him doing his dictation in front of me and asking if I had anything to add or change. Pretty impressive. He was a very nice man and very detailed. I was then given a list of places to go and people to see over the next few days.

We went back to the hotel to relax, the boy swam and we spent the evening flipping through tons of TV channels that had nothing on...lol. Exhibit A of why we don't pay for TV at home :O) We did arise early on a few days to watch 19 Kids & Counting as it was on from 5am-6am. Yes you have to be die hard fans to get up that early to watch a TV show.

Thanks to another homeschooling mom who is a thrifty traveller, we were able to get a great deal on a hotel right across from Mayo Clinic. We started out with an Economy Double Bed room, but after a few nights we decided it was just not working out, so we upgraded to a larger room and spent the rest of our stay in some much needed comfort. I had found some decent rates at an Extended Stay America that was 10 miles from Mayo Clinic. We lived for a month at an Extended Stay America during our adoption process, no frills, no pool, no breakfast, no soap, no shampoo and only clean towels/sheets/maid service every 3 days. So for LESS $$ we got a pool, walking distance to Mayo Clinic, shops, places to eat, computer room, free shuttle to grocery stores and mall, Barnes & Noble, on site public library (this was a hit with the child!). All these places were connected by an underground Subway, so not once did we have to go out into the cold to go anywhere.

We stayed at The Kahler Hotel in the Economy One Double Bed Room according to the hotel website is

"Quaint and functional, these rooms offer guests a cozy environment mixed with a nice assortment of features including a 27-inch TV, a mini-refrigerator, and complimentary high-… View Morespeed internet wi-fi with speeds up to 50Mbps complete." We rented a microwave for $5.00 per day, which was worth it for heating up leftovers. This room was a bit too quaint, about the size of a child's bedroom, very clean and neat, but very small and not enough room on the floor for a cot or sleeping bag. One of us slept either in the office chair or in the bed. This would be great room for a husband/wife to stay in.

We saved on meals by packing a small crockpot, hotplate, egg cooker, a pot and a skillet, along with groceries and dishes. It was wonderful to come back to the hotel in the late afternoon to a crockpot full of delicious food.

We were rubbing elbows with the Mayo Clinic medical students at the hotel, who are the cream of the crop as only 250 are accepted at a time to Mayo's Medical School. They even have their own Mayo Medical School Lounge in the hotel. It was very nice with a full kitchen and living room. We saw many foreign students going in and out of there and the YUMMY smells coming from the kitchen were of an ethnic delight each night.

We met a number of foreign people who were coming to Mayo for treatment as well as we ran into 2 ladies from our home area that were coming for treatment. What a small world we live in!

Our unsocialized homeschooler meet a bunch of kids to swim with at the pool and had a lot of fun with them.

Tomorrow I will share my exciting day of testing.

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