The Mayo Trip

Whew. Let's see a lot to tell...maybe. So we went to Mike and Liz's Tuesday. Woke up early Wednesday. Caught a plane to Minneapolis, then one to Rochester. We didn't really do much Wednesday in MN. We went to a really great Italian place, Victoria's, which is Jeff's favorite restaurant. It's a really good place, very yummy, big menu, and you can get things in a TASTY gluten-free, which is rare. We also sort of walked around the clinic, just for Jeff to get a refresher, and to explore a little. Here's a little info on the clinic and city. Basically the town is the Mayo Clinic. The buildings downtown are pretty much all part of it, even if they are separate hospitals. The downtown area are all connected either underground...subways is what they are called-no trains, though, you just walk, or they are connected with above street walkways. Also underneath is shopping/eating. The slideshow has a shot of Jeff in the Caribou Coffee, which is under the clinic. The main building is the Mayo building and Gonda building, which is really one building. The Gonda is the one with the glass, huge lobby, and that's where you'll see the glass art in the slideshow. The Mayo building, which was built in the 50s is the greyish granite part. Most of what you see at the clinic is very nice. The waiting rooms are very large, a lot of the part you see is covered in natural stone, and as you see it's not like most hospitals you see. Jeff says the patient rooms are like normal, however. You'll also see part of the Plummer building in the slideshow...it's the one with the 2-ton doors Jeff is standing beside. They rarely close the doors, but it's all mechanical when they do. It's also the building that has the lego model in there. We also saw the coolest Barnes and Noble ever. The front was like a theater--probably was an old theather, and the inside was a castle. You should notice the brick work on both the book store and the picture of the church, which is across from the main building. Jeff and I also had a little fun with the Mayo brothers statues. Oh, also about the photos...they were taken after hours....so that's why they are filled with people. During regular hours it's a packed place.

Now for a report...Well, Jeff went for a check on the surgery they did. We really haven't gotten official results, but everything seemed like they would expect. A few weeks ago Jeff started having some changes with vision, and the eye doctor recommended a blood glucose test. So we had gone the Monday before we left. The healthy fasting range is 70-100, his was 270. So we had it tested again at Mayo and 248. They also ran a test that looked at the past four months, and that level was twice what it should be. The GI doc that we were meeting with at Mayo basically gave the diagnosis of diabetes. We didn't have time to talk with anyone at the clinic about specifics of that, but are trying to get an appointment here as I blog. Of course they need a referral from a GP, and Jeff had to leave a message there....so we're hoping today we can get it done.

So back to the trip. We got to eat again at Victoria's Thursday night. Friday we left for Atlanta. The plane from Minneapolis to Atlanta was terrible. A completely packed 737 flying through the beginnings of the storms that brought tornados. We were actually diverted around them, but had bad turbulence the last hour or more. We were both nearly sick, and didn't get our barrings back until a couple hours later. We then had to face the storms with the Atlanta Mildes, but nothing like they had in Abbeville and Greenwood areas. It was great to get a chance to hang out with Mike, Liz, and Daniel a while. It was also great to get to sleep in our own bed Saturday.

I hope everyone had a great Easter! We went to Metamorphosis, and putzed around.