Valentine's Day

Dick's essay about our adventure in Ann Arbor :

The drive from Traverse to Ann Arbor was clean and uneventful. We were in awe at the size of the piles of snow along the highway but there was nothing new falling from the sky. We registered at the Comfort Inn for the next 5 days. On Thursday we had a consultation with the physician who is to do the chemo procedure. Afterwards, had lunch at Zingerman’s and then we did a memory tour of one of our favorite towns ending with a stop for beverages back out at the Grand Traverse Pie company. As we sat reminiscing about some of our earlier stops with geocachers, what to our wondering eyes should appear but Nurse Nanna, Anne Garman. We had a fun talk and then back to the motel to rest up for our Valentines Day event.

We left the motel at 6:30 AM yesterday for a 7 o'clock appointment at the U of M hospital. I dropped Nancy off at the front door and drove around the corner and into the large parking deck, she went to the admissions desk. Because the procedure was at Interventional Radiology, in the rear of the building and opposite side from the entrance, they gave her her own little scooter cart to drive instead of a wheel chair. They also told her that it was in the basement level so we had to use the elevator. When we got to the elevator, we went down to B1. When we got off we noticed the sign, "No Carts on the Elevators", Oh Well! I later asked a number of folks how one is supposed to get the scooters from one floor to the other and no one had an answer. 

Anyway, we found the reception area, got the scooter parked and Nancy checked in there. Soon we were called back and while one nurse was hooking her up to the IV stuff, the other one was updating her records into the computer. The day before, when we were shopping at Meijer, she bought little Valentine souvenirs to hand out to the various nurses, orderlies, PA's and Doctors that dealt with her. They were a big hit with all. Soon they were both finished with their tasks and left to work with their next patients. While Nancy snoozed, I read my book. After a while, another nurse came in, announced that they were ready for her and sent me back to reception and rolled her off down the hall in the other direction. For the next couple of hours, she was TACEed and I read and explored the building. 

At about 10:30, I was taken back to join her in the recovery area. In Traverse, at Munson, the recovery section is a series of separate rooms. Here she was in the corner of a large room that is sectioned off by curtains into eight small areas. When I was taken back, seven were occupied by various patients. Nancy was tended by nurse Cindy who kept reappearing to check her BP, her bandages, her IV, and to ask how she was feeling. By noon, Nan was allowed to sit up, to walk to the rest room and to have a sandwich. They were waiting for a room to become available to check her in. As we waited, from time to time I got out and went for a walk about the place. I went to the cafeteria for coffee and a sandwich. I scouted out the best route back to the entrance and the car. 

Sometime after 1 the PAs came in to check on her progress, all was going well and we asked if we could just go back to the motel. After checking her over again, they indicated that they would check with the Dr. but if things continued as well as they had been, she could be released about 4. By 4 we were getting antsy and chomping at the bit. Cindy paged the Dr. and we were finally given a number of prescriptions and the green light to go. After a detour to Rite Aid and the Burger King drive through, we made it back to the Comfort Inn 11 hours after we had left in the morning and crashed. What a day! 

02/14/2014	You found Your personality is so...magnetic!		Visit Log
Happy VD. In our over 10 years of geocaching, we had never found and logged a cache on February 14th until today. This site has lots of memories for us. Mrs. Bend lived in Betsy Barbour 60 years ago. Our favorite "go out to eat" place was on the corner. Red's Rite Spot had great burgers. Down the street, Cottage Inn was the first place we ever had pizza's. Grabbed the cache, signed log and replaced as found. Thanks for the smilie and thanks for the memories. Back in the 50's Cottage Inn had a sign on the wall which said "Banks don't sell pizza, we don't cash checks".  Good memories from college days!