Hello everyone,
Super Brief Update: all is well, Sask docs and mayo docs have
nearly identical opinions! Yah!
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| Gonda Building - Mayo Clinic |
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| View of the Mayo Clinic including Plummer Building(brick) |
Today was our last day at the Mayo Clinic. I have to admit,
they truly do personify patient first care. Every staff member has been
friendly, every surface is immaculately clean and it has been a really pleasant
experience all around. The clinic is everything you would think an opulent
American hospital to be. It’s more like a fancy hotel than a hospital. Every
once in a while you walk past areas that actually look like a hospital, albeit
a very clean and cutting edge hospital. There is almost always beautiful music
playing in the back ground and there are people everywhere ensuring you don’t
spend more than 10 seconds “lost”. Heck even the people sitting in the food
court notice a furrowed brow and are quick to intervene. There is an amazing
network of “subways”. Now these subways are pedestrian subways and skyways that
literally link almost the entirety of the downtown area! It’s amazing! This
subway is similar in concept and utility as the one at U of S but is in no
other way similar. Aside from the tile, carpet and paint, there is an
underground MALL!!!! You can’t walk through without finding something great to
stop and look at, or eat. There are art displays in the tunnel, my personal
favourite were the 16th century china pieces. Another great part of the patient experience
is that there are so many wellness and information sessions that I think we
could have been here for a week before even starting to access all of the
resources that were available to us.
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| Our hotel and one of the Mayo Clinic buildings |
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| view from the waiting area |
Our day today started off with a quick trip to the Erickson Hair and Skin Centre. This place is amazing! It is run by an auxiliary group and was a wealth of information and help! Even more neat is that they offer complementary wigs for Mayo patients! I spent about an hour here but there wasn’t quite enough time. Dad and Steve came by and I think they found the experience a bit strange. Heck I was quite weirded out, but also really enjoyed it! I have definitively concluded I can never have a black bob! I showed them a few choices and then they whisked me away to my first appointment. Being that the two men who spoil me most in the world were coming to fetch me, they brought me a cinnabon! As they said “Because you probably didn’t grab one on your way down, and even if you did, you deserve another one!” . Yup, true story, they spoil me like that. I then proceeded to inhale the cinnabon before our first appointment, much to my horror without a fork. I tried “washing” my hands with hand sanitizer, it sort of worked. Lucky for me all the exam rooms come with hand washing stations.
The surgeon oncologist was very knowledgeable and clearly
had a wealth of information to share as he had his very own entourage. The
appointment started with two of his residents coming in and asking a few
questions. We then met the surgeon, the 2 residents(whom we had just met) and
the surgeons RN joined us for the consult. It was a pretty crowded room. The
surgeon was great to talk to however our surgeon in Saskatoon had already
covered all of the information that we went over. This is actually a good thing
as that is basically what we wanted. When two senior surgeons from two cities
(heck two countries) are in agreement with your surgery options you can sleep a
little more soundly! We got out of that appointment with just enough time to
get on the elevator go up to the top floor and head into the next
appointment.
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| unique fountains found through out Mayo |
The medical oncologist was great. Not only did she
re-arrange her schedule so that I could see her before leaving back to
Saskatoon (ie. 3 days early) she was very informative and sited lot’s of
studies. We determined that there were no trials that were suitable for me as
they did not cover my medicine let alone travel to and from. However there were
a few that I otherwise would have been suitable for. Most of which would be
benefiting science and research more than my actual prognosis so were not worth
the exorbitant expense. She confirmed
the treatment plan and although there were some small variations in “recipe”
both her and Dr. Sami spoke on the phone and concluded all was well with my
treatment plan and we are adding another drug
alongside the hercepton to my treatment plan (the name of which I cannot
recall and Steve has all the documents in the car). Dr Sami was planning to add
this pending the HER2 results which he had not reviewed yet. So all is well and
basically Saskatoon does a great job! The radiologists were quite impressed with
the quality of the images! And the medical oncologist said she had no concerns
with my treatment plan and discussed the differences between her plan and the
one my Saskatoon oncologists’ plan. They were nearly identical.
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| hardwood exam tables, just because. |
After the appointment we went back to the erikson centre and
I picked out my first wig! Eek! Got a sleeping cap and a cool scarf thing and
then bought some tube scarves that work great under hats. Dad and Steve have
ventured forth into the wild north beating through a winter storm and I can
only imagine extreme fatigue to get to Saskatoon in time for tomorrow. They
left me behind with strict instructions on how to get to the airport and to not
go shopping and miss my flights J
The flight from Rochester to Minneapolis is only 20 minutes, then a 2 hr
layover and then 2 hrs until I am home.
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| in the Plummer foyer |
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| Lucky girl! |
YOU GUYS ROCK!!!!
#alyssastrong J
that ones for you Ryan!
I will try to post tomorrow with a “first day of chemo”
post... but no promises!
Left Foot’n & Right Foot’n
Steve & Alyssa
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