lsanderson | (no subject)

My aunt had another ALS clinic visit this morning. I left the house close to 8:30, and drove past 8th Street dozing in the downtown traffic. After wandering back to 8th Street and meandering to the top of the Hennepin County Hospital parking lot on the corner of 8th Street and Chicago, I found a parking space. I waited forever for the elevator. My
aunt, who was taking her first Metro Mobility trip, was not there yet (or else she beat me -- we checked later and she didn't). Another friend of hers was supposed to show up around 8:45. I was there for a few minutes before she got there. My aunt arrived around 9:06, and we went up to the clinic. The placed the three of us in a small room, which involved a bit of toing and froing until the
chair and the other two of us fit into the room.

After the nurse took my aunt's BP & O2, a guy came in to do breathing. Next, the speech therapist and dietician struck. Then the physical therapist, another Sandy, arrived. She's great, and wrote up a bunch of orders for the nursing home. My aunt was trying for two whirlpool baths and a shower a week, but she wrote up one whirlpool and one shower. But she did write up a flip and baste every two hours over night, and much more range of motion exercises. After they left, I think the main doctor came in, who mostly pushed experimental medicine and drug trials after the finished talking about llamas and Machu Pichu. Then, just as we think we're about ready to escape, the ventilator/feeding tube pushing doctor arrived. Then the nurse came back, and we started beating a retreat for the Metro Mobility pickup at 1:00. Getting the powered chair out involved a bounce or two, but not much damage to the office. Although making the next appointment involved a bit of time.

Then we rode up and down in the elevator (mistaking the "S" for a "5"). We got down to the lobby just in time to see Metro Mobility van disappear. (Still at 12:45 a bit early, my aunt was getting cranky.) I went to call them -- local calls $0.50 and the damned phone would not take my credit card, when another Metro Mobility van arrived and whisked my aunt back to Jones-Harrison. I dashed off to Subway and work.

I should still be at work working to make up the missed hours, or at the Illusion Theater watching their new play, but instead I'm here waiting for Jimmy to come and pick up the bookcase he bought from my aunt, but that we moved to my basement.

I could also be putting my garage door opener back on track and tightening it up. <grump>