At the Mayo clinic, part 1

The ultrasound fluid at the Mayo clinic is warm. There are warmers with the ultrasound machines, and when the fluid gets squeezed out from the bottle onto your body, it's warm. I asked the technician if the fluid conducts better when it's warmed. She said "no, that is purely for the patients comfort". Yeah, brings one to another realm of patient care.

So I'm here, a state I had never been to before... Minnesota. Rochester, Minnesota, the home of the famous Mayo clinic. Where the best diagnosticians in the world are supposed to be.

I know I haven't written in a long while. I just couldn't. Things were too rough on too many levels, I was in really bad shape. I just couldn't write more about the gloom and doom, so I didn't write at all.

But after a 25-hour day of planes and lay-overs, Robert and I arrived here.

Our feet hit the ground running. We checked in to the place where we are staying (a home organized by this foundation) at around 7:30pm Thursday (after leaving our home in Be'er Sheva 2:30am Wed night/Thursday morning). We ate a little, then went to sleep. My first check-in was for 6:30am Friday morning. Then I met my new internist here... a tall Italian woman with a slight-build, and a very heavy Italian accent. She was thorough and kind. I was a bit disappointed, though, that after all the painstaking work I did to translate all my medical documents from Hebrew to English, and an entire half-day spent trying (and finally succeeding) to upload my imaging studies (CT, MRE) to my Mayo patient files, she knew nothing of me when she entered the room. Hadn't seen anything. What was even worse, was that my CT wasn't even available for her viewing. I had it with me of course, and her staff uploaded it again for her to see, but that took over an hour. I don't understand how, in a place with such accent on efficiency, my doctor met me with no prior viewing of my case. So, I had to start from the beginning. Because of that, and because she was so thorough, it was a 2 hour consult/exam.

Her first thought was to try nerve block shots with me, through the pain clinic here, to see if that can isolate the pain/nerve receptors and block the pain. It is not a long-term solution, but a type of diagnostic tool. So I will set up an appointment for that tomorrow.

I skipped something, though... in my haste to gloss over the difficult passed few weeks, I forgot to say that the day before we left, we finally heard back from the surgeon from the hospital in Afula, who I had seen some weeks back. He called. He said that he had consulted with the surgeon who had put in my mesh/clips, and he had consulted with other radiologists regarding my CT scan. He did major footwork on my behalf. He told me that everyone said to him not to operate on me. But he said that he feels that because my quality of life has been so destroyed by this pain, and I am young, he wants to try to help. He is willing and ready to do a laproscopic surgery on me, to release adhesions, fix the suspected hernia in the mesh, fix whatever abnormalities are happening with the mesh (it may be folded over on itself), and do what he can. He would not do an open surgery, though, he feels that is too risky. Whatever he can do laproscopically he will. OK, so here is someone willing to take a chance on me, to help. I told him I was headed to the Mayo clinic, and he said "Excellent. Call me when you return and let me know what they said and we'll go from there".

So that is on a back burner for now.
I don't WANT surgery. At all. My mesh was put in laproscopically, and that hurt for an entire year thereafter. That was when I started on the Fentanyl. And it may not even help, we have to know that, too, and it may even put me in deeper pain. But I have to do some risk assessment here, I mean yes, I have lost almost all my quality of life. I have to be willing to try to change that somehow. But surgery is scary in my case. But not out of the question. And I haven't yet met with Mayo surgical consults, so the jury is still out on this issue.

So, after my internist consult, it was blood test time. Done quickly and efficiently, and even bandaged the place of the blood draw afterward! In Israel, you walk out of the nurse's station after your blood draw with your hand holding a piece of cotton on the area, and if you take it off too early or don't apply enough pressure, you bleed all over the place. Usually I wind up with huge bruises for weeks thereafter. This time, no marks at all except for where the needle went in! The small things can make a difference.

After the blood test, I was scheduled for two ultrasound exams. One for the arterial function to my abdomen, and one for my kidneys. That's when I leanrned about the warm ultrasound fluid. I don't have results from those tests yet.

Robert was pushing me around in a Mayo wheelchair the whole time. Thank Gd for those, it is a huge place, and every test is in a different locale. We hit the mall there, too, because I was completely freezing from the time I hit ground in Chicago! Yes, Chicago-- we had to change planes there to Rochester. The tiny little plane that took us to Rochester MN had COLD MIST coming up from the sideboards in the floor, and my legs were frozen solid. No blankets on offer on that flight, either. I couldn't warm up all the next day, either...I hadn't thought to bring a sweatshirt or jacket of any sort. It's 100 degrees (or over) every day in Be'er Sheva, it just didn't occur to me that I might be cold in the US. So, we bought me a Mayo Clinic sweatshirt. Cozy.

Then we came back to our rooming house to get ready for Shabbat. We didn't have to do any cooking, though, it is all provided by the organization. That is *so tremendous*, it's phenomenal. Shabbat was with another couple and a single woman also staying here, we ate dinner together. But Shabbat day was a bit lonely; the couple left, the single woman was visiting her friend at the hospital all day, and Robert went to the Chabad shul to pray (too far for me to walk). He didn't get back until after 3pm, so I had a lot of quiet time.

I have not stopped being tired since I got here. I slept almost all day yesterday, as well as night. Jet lag. Today is Tisha B'av, and we'll go to the Chabad later for a program they are having. The rabbi of the Chabad here is from Be'er Sheva, BTW! I knew his father (of blessed memory), and know his mother. That's cool.
I am fasting so far, but I am prepared to break the fast if I feel I am getting sick.

Tests and consults start up again tomorrow morning, and go through the week. I'll try to keep you posted on progress.

I can't believe life has brought me here. It is such a deep, curious trip, this journey called life. I just pray I can get to live it in less (or no?) pain.

And I pray my kids will be OK during this time period we are gone. It's complicated. They know I haven't been well in a long time, the dynamic between all of us has changed. If the mom's not OK, the kids know it and are affected. We are all hoping that better living is on the way. I feel so sorry for the kids sometimes, what they've had to endure through my illnesses. I know that each of our characters is built through our life experiences, but I wanted better life experiences for them. I wanted better life experiences for *me*, for my marriage, for my life. OK, not going there, I'll start crying again. Let's move forward.

We're moving forward. With the help of G-d.