Mayo Clinic

Last week we headed down to Mayo Clinic to have their retina specialists look at Rocketman's eyes. We were thrilled to get a call saying that they wanted to see him. We drove down from the Twin Cities which only took about an hour and a half from our house.

I booked the hotel using Priceline and the only complaint was that they air conditioner would cycle on along with the heat. The unit was also very noisy. We had lunch with a friend of mine who is also a designer and her engineer husband (see the similarities?).

We arrived for Rocketman's appointment and first had to register. It reminded us of bank tellers lined up. There were about 20 windows and you waited for someone to holler for you as you waited in line. It went very quickly.


As we made our way to the opthamology building, we saw this gorgeous art hanging from the ceiling.

I'm pretty sure it is made of glass. I was surprised at all the fine art I saw at Mayo. We made our way to the right area and checked in. We were told to take red seats. Names were called and patients made their way back.

Finally, Rocketman's name was called. We went back to a room where the gal asked lots of questions. She put dilating drops into Rocketman's eyes and said to wait again in the wait area and someone would call him for photography. I was to wait since there would be no room for me.

He was called back pretty quickly and while he was gone I took out some maedeup to do. It's always fun to see people watching me work and I had a few that asked what I was doing. There were a lot of patients who had macular degeneration and who came every few months for a shot in their eye. It is a revolutionary procedure that slows the macular degeneration and preserves the sight.

When Rocketman came out, he had that dazed look and I knew something unpleasant had happened. He said they put an IV in him with a dye (which he has had before) but the girl taking the pictures was new and being trained and she took forever to take and retake pictures. He was getting nauseous from the lights.

It wasn't much longer when they called us back to meet with the doctor. She came in and said that she was going to take a few minutes to look at his pictures and read his history. She couldn't seem to get it straight that multiple things had happened to both eyes. So kept thinking it all occurred on one eye. She said that we were there to consult on his swelling in one of his eyes which we knew would incur from the latest surgery.

We told her no, we were there for a second opinion on his eyesight. He has a lot of distortion in both eyes and we were hoping for some good news. She didn't pull any punches and said that he was lucky to have the sight he had considering what had happened. He would forever have to accept this distortion. The eye with the latest surgery may still get better since it takes a year for the eye to heal.

As she did her examination, apparently the chin rest was jiggling a little. She got REALLY upset and told Rocketman to hold onto the grips on either side of the chin rest, like a periscope. Rocketman has been in this position hundreds of times and it wasn't his fault it was jiggly but it made him feel bad.

She then wanted to start him on a new antibiotic drop but asked if he wanted to take it. Um, what would you recommend since you are the doctor. She said it was up to him so he decided to take it.

We left feeling a little confused and disappointed. I guess we had our hopes up that Mayo would be the savior of his sight and now we know that isn't the case. I also thought that she could have had better bedside manner but it seems to be the norm these days with specialty doctors. It isn't right but it is what it is.

We drove down to Rockford to spend Christmas with the folks and had a grand time.