OUR TRIP

It seems like I haven't blogged forever. Much has happened. I am still recovering from the trip to Rochester. It wouldn't be such a bad drive if the Twin Cities wasn't halfway in the middle of the trip. The Cities are too big to go around and going though them, on the freeway, was horrendous. We went down on Sunday and the traffic was unbelievable. I, mistakenly, thought that Sunday traffic would be lighter. The trip down was made much worse by construction. On the way back, we skirted the downtown area, by going West. It was still heavy city traffic but less tense driving.

We went to Rochester to visit the Mayo Clinic. Jamie had a three hour consultation to help diagnose a condition, she has had, for at least four years. The main features of this condition is frequent nausea, no appetite, and a darkness of mood. Jamie researched everything that could have this cluster of symptoms; sleep apnea and Lyme’s disease being two of them. She was diagnosed with sleep apnea and learned everything she could about it. Managing her sleep apnea helped, but did not solve all the problems, in the last few months she has felt worse.

Early on she was told by a doctor that she could have Lyme's disease. She went to a specialist who said she did not have Lyme's disease, but he detected another possible ailment, called leptospirosis. This is a disease that can be gotten from a tick bite and the organism, also, inhabits sheep and cattle dung. This was happening about the same time as the sleep apnea discovery and it was a possibility, not a firm diagnoses. It was not followed up on, as treatment for sleep apnea appeared to hold promise.

The consultation at Mayo was to determine if this is primarily a psychiatric problem or a neurological one. The conclusion was that it is neurological and may indeed be leptospirosis. She is being referred for various test, that may include a brain scan and a spinal tap. They also recommend an anti-biotic to see if it will lower her white blood cell count. I might add; a week before going to Mayo, Jamie had a work up by her doctor, here. All her organ functions were in normal limits. But she did have an elevated white count, indicating she had an infection some where in her body.

We are hopeful we are on the right track and our long ordeal is almost over.

I had a lot of resistance to making this trip. It was a three hour drive and I knew most of it would be heavy traffic. I haven't driven much in the city since I retired and that was seventeen years ago; also, I am 82 and have some infirmity. My original plan was to leave at 4:30 AM and then come back the same day. I couldn't imagine leaving our dog for over 24 hours and I have animals to care for. Well, then Naomi volunteered to house sit, so we changed our plan and decided to go Sunday and stay in a hotel. Things seemed to be falling in place and I was beginning to feel more comfortable about making the trip.

Then Sunday Morning something happened, you here about it -read about it, but it has never happened to me. I changed my clothes on Sunday Morning. I took the stuff out of my pockets and transferred them to my new jeans. I was going to go up to town and fill the van up with gas and get the paper, I made an automatic slap at my back pocket, no wallet. I went to fetch my old jeans. They were in the wash. We took all the clothes out of the washer. The wallet wasn't in the pants pocket. [Wow- that water was hot] We fished around in the water and I tried to plunge my arm in. Couldn't find any wallet. Jamie sorted through the wet clothes; there it was wrapped up in a dress.

I had just got $100 from the bank, in case we needed cash on the trip. So I had five soaked twenty dollar bills, plus a few ones and fives. I spread the money out on the table on the deck. Some of the cards and assorted items in my wallet had been there for forty years or so. Perhaps, except for my drivers license and two credit cards there was nothing of real value- but I have been carrying around those soggy pieces of paper for a long time.

Was this an omen!

We weren't leaving until afternoon and everything dried in time. I guess you can't hurt money, because that dried the fastest and the most successfully. You could not tell that it went through the washer.

I guess it wasn't an omen, because things went splendidly. Our hotel room was on the third floor overlooking a very busy corner. We were right across the street from one of the Mayo buildings. It was an old and funky hotel and it fit us perfectly. The a/c unit didn't work well, we opened the window. Rochester is a vital, busy city and the noises were reminiscent of a big city. It was exciting for us country folk. We enjoyed watching all the activity from our perch. Later at night, it wasn't so much fun, the noise changed its quality, but not its volume. I would guess all the deliveries were made at night. One could hear, what sounded like, huge trucks go through the intersection all night long.

We had a great time talking to people and we ate at an excellent restaurant. Rochester seems to be an exciting place to live and it is populated by an international assortment; I suppose both healers and patients.

On Friday I will return to more usual blog material. Of course, I am not good at reading the future.

Love and Peace, Gregg