Mall Of America

We decided to go to the Mall of America today. Minneapolis is only about 1 hour and 15 minutes from Rochester and the mall is a little south of Minneapolis. It is HUGE!! There is a large Nickelodeon Adventure amusement park in the middle of the mall. And there are four levels of shops. We walked the entire mall in about 5 hours. I am not kidding, I had Rick in a mall for 5 hours. That was a lot of walking. We ate lunch at Rainforest Cafe. It is so neat. It rains inside and there are huge aquariums with tropical fish. Monkeys and birds hand from the ceiling, although they aren't real. The atmosphere was great, the food was okay. The lego store was fun and Rick really liked it. It was fun and a nice way to enjoy our last day of exploring.

Here are some pictures from the mall.

Tomorrow brings the entire reason we are here. I will fill you in on everything that will happen tomorrow in a little bit. We have to run to the store to get a couple things for Rick. Check back in just a little while.

Back in a bit,

Jaime

The Mayo Clinic

We walked around the Mayo Clinic campus this afternoon. It was very warm and humid. We did not go in to any of the buildings but I took lots of pictures of the outside of the different buildings on the campus. It is amazing and there are some absolutely beautiful old buildings as well as the new, bigger buildings. The outside of the main mayo building which is the Mayo Building and Gonda Building is windows and panels of marble. It is a really neat area. There are lots of shops and restaurants all around the campus. There are beautiful courtyards with gardens and fountains. There are benches made out of granite too. There is a lot more to see and do that we hope to be able to fit in this week. So here are some of the pictures I took today. And yes there is a duplicate picture on here, I accidentally uploaded it twice and then couldn't delete one of them.

We also took a drive to Wisconsin and drove along the Upper Mississippi River Valley on the Wisconsin side of the river. I took lots of pictures of that as well that I will post another time. We are trying to enjoy ourselves and relax before all the tests begin. Tomorrow we are thinking of going into Minneapolis for a while. We have to be back by 6 pm so that I can make Rick his fat free dinner that he has to eat before 7 pm. I will post the itinerary for the first day at Mayo tomorrow so that you know what we will be doing on tuesday. Originally Rick was scheduled for bloodwork tomorrow but it was moved to tuesday.

Until next time,

Jaime

Home Away From Home

We are staying at The Residence Inn Marriott. We are only a couple blocks away from the Mayo Clinic and are connected to the clinic by a pedestrian subway that we are going to check out today. We have a full kitchen so we can make our own meals and a large room so that it doesn't feel so cramped.

We got a lot of sleep last night because we were so tired. We didn't get up until almost 10:00 local time. We had our complimentary continental breakfast and we are now getting ready to go explore Rochester. We saw some neat places last night that we want to go check out. Hopefully the rain will wait until later today.

Here are some pictures of our hotel room. I will post pictures of Rochester tonight.

Our front door and "office"

The kitchen

The bedroom

The living room (Rick has a headache this morning)

Us

The bathroom

Our view

Jaime

Welcome to Minnesota

We have arrived in Minnesota! It has been along day and I am tired. I can't believe we are here. It is so surreal. The flights were fine and Rick didn't get air sick. I was dizzy on the small plane over to Seattle, but other than that it was fine.

At the airport at 6:30 a.m.

The view from the plane when coming into Minneapolis

We are adjusting to the 2 hour time difference and will have to eat a late dinner tonight because we had lunch at 5 o'clock after getting the car and driving out of Minneapolis on our way to Rochester. The weather forcast for tomorrow is calling for severe storms. So that should be interesting since I have been told the storm here can be very intense compared to what we are used to.

I will post more later tonight or tomorrow morning. I have some unpacking to do now.

Until next time,

Jaime

The time has come

It is late and I am finally getting ready to go to bed. I have to get up in four hours to get showered and finished packing the last minute stuff. I just wanted to let you all know that I will be updating daily while we are gone. We are hoping that all of you will leave us messages so we won't be so lonely.

Until we meet in Minnesota,
Jaime

Where to start?

I have a lot to say tonight and I am not sure where to start.

First things first. I have to give a big shout out to Rick's friends at Rosauers. You know who you are and you know what you did. There are no words except Thank You!! It means a lot to us.

I have had lots of people ask how to leave comments on my blog. Under each post there is a link that says comments. I know it is small and hard to see, but it is there. It is underneath where I sign my name at the end of each post. Click on comments and it will send you to the comments page. You will need to create an account because I don't allow anonymous comments due to the risk of spam and negative comments. It is very easy to create an account if you don't already have one. I hope this helps and those of you that haven't signed yet will sign and let us know you were here. Just be sure to sign under the most recent post because each post has a seperate link for comments. Gosh I hope that made sense.

I can't believe that in 34 hours we will be on our way to Mayo. It is crazy!! I have so much to do still to finish getting ready. I do have all my errands done so I just need to finish packing. It wouldn't have been so bad except that I had to pack for the lake vacation we take the day after we get back from Mayo. The lake vacation was scheduled before we decided to go to Mayo, but it kinda worked out good that they are so close together because now Rick has three weeks off from work. Although he says he would rather be working instead of going to Mayo. I think he is just nervous. This is a going to be a good trip.

Megan is very upset that we are going to be leaving for so long. It was so hard to watch her cry her little eyes out when she realized how long we will be gone. She just kept saying she doesn't want Mommy to leave. It broke my heart. Samantha understands and is just excited to get to stay so long with Nana. We told them that we are taking an airplane to go see a doctor for Daddy. They know that Daddy's liver is sick and they see him take his medicine daily so they kinda get it. I just had to tell them something because they think that getting on an airplane means that we are going to Disneyland. I didn't want them to think that we were going to Disney without them.

I do have one very big concern about leaving. I don't want to miss seeing Megan lose her first tooth. We discovered a few days ago that she has a loose tooth, and the other tooth is already starting to grow in behind it. I hope that tooth doesn't fall out while we are gone. I would hate to miss the chance to say hi to the Tooth Fairy (wink, wink). So if you see Megan while we are gone don't ask her to wiggle it anymore. I don't want it falling out for at least another 9 days.

There are some people that I have to thank for making this trip to Mayo possible. First I want to say thank you to my new friend Debbie that gave us the inspiration to meet with Dr. Lindor. And a Big Thank You goes to Rick's parents for helping to pay for the flight and hotel. Also a Big Thank You to my Grams for helping us as well. And everyone say a prayer for my mom as she has the girls for most of the time. The girls will also be staying a couple days with Rick's parents so they will have a very full house for a couple days.

We appreciate everyones support. This is going to be stressful but we are going to get the answers we are seeking, I just know we are. Thanks for following along.

Until next time,
Jaime

But you look fine

If I hear one more person say "but he looks fine" I'm going to scream. I was very proud of Rick the other day when he had to have a conversation with two people that don't understand and kept saying that he looked fine. He kept his composure and just nodded along, all the while just wishing they would stop.

We have been very lucky that our immediate family has an understanding of what Rick's health conditions do to him. And I know there are others out there that understand as well. But for the few that pretend like they do, but really don't, that is where it gets difficult. I can always tell when someone is pretending to "get it" and are just going along with the conversation. That is probably the most hurtful thing to me. Just because he may not appear to be sick, does not mean he is fine. I mean, do you really think we would go to all the trouble of going to Mayo if he was fine?

Rick is really good at hiding how he is really feeling. There are many times that even I don't know how he really feels. Just about two weeks ago he had a migraine and still went to a family dinner. Nobody there even knew he had a migraine. Now I don't know about anyone else but when I have a migraine I can hardly function. He gets up every morning and goes to work no matter how he feels. And when he is there I know he tells everyone that he is fine even when he is not. I could tell stories about how sick he has been at work before, but I won't. The thing about having crohn's and PSC is that you can't see it. It is not visible to the naked eye. He has always been skinny, so he doesn't really look any different. If you were to look into his eyes you would notice that they are yellow, but other than that there are no outward signs. And that is why I think some people think he is fine.

Rick doesn't want anyone feeling sorry for him and making a fuss over him. And I don't blame him for that. He wants to just live like everyone else. But sometimes it can get hard to deal with the stupid people that don't understand.

I have been attending church recently and have always been a believer. I pray everyday and pray with the kids as well. But to have someone suggest that by praying enough it will heal itself is just ludicrous. That by following a certain diet and avoiding certain things, that it will all just go away is beyond me. If that was true there would be no cancer, no death. I do believe that by praying and following a healthy lifestyle it will improve life, and help stabilize the disease. But to say to someone with a chronic illness that if they just close their eyes and pray it will all just go away is so hard for me to deal with. I mean don't you think I have tried that already? My grandma tells me that she prays for Rick every night. So do I. But that won't make this all go away. It does however, make it easier for me.

The girls learn bible verses in Sunday School every week. One week the verse hit home to me and I have kept it memorized and say it all the time. It is a children's version of it, so it is simplified. Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Phillipians 4:6. I found the long version and have that written down and look at it often. It just spoke to me and I feel it helps me when I catch myself very anxious about all of this.

I hope I haven't offended anyone with this post. That was not my intention. Rick and I just had a long conversation tonight about this. He was telling me about the other day when he had to listen to the two people give him advice on how to heal himself, and how that made him feel. I am certain that they meant well, but it was still hurtful. I do have to trust that God is in control of all of this and that He will guide us in the right direction. And I know it will all work out the way it is supposed to in the end. It just makes it hard to hear "but he looks fine."

Until next time,
Jaime