Right away, let me say that if you have to get sick, this is a really good place to go.

We left my brother’s home near LaCrosse early this morning and in a little over an hour we were in Rochester, MN. The clinic and its hospitals are the focal point of this small city and it is fairly easy to navigate. There are people waiting in every parking lot and in every lobby to answer questions for newcomers like us – they are used to doing it and because they have developed good systems things went smoothly for us.

I was amazed that we drove to the 9th floor (top) of the parking garage and were headed back down again before we found an empty spot, and at such an early hour. There were rows of sturdy wheel chairs at curbside for anyone not inclined to walk, good signage that was easy to follow. This stuff is so important! Knowing where to park, and where to go for appointments is one of my main concerns in going to a new place.

There were no long lines and no extended waiting periods! We might run into this later on but today was extraordinarily good in that respect. After check-in we were helped by a appointment specialist, Mr. Smith and put into an exam room to wait for our doctor, Dr. Jones. “Smith and Jones” jokes were exchanged.

Dr. Jones got a detailed report from Dennis. He seemed to be a good listener and made notes as we went along through the exam. He wasn’t a white lab coat doctor which I thought was interesting. He had a nice, expensive looking wool tweed suit, longish curly dark hair, and a trimmed beard. He gave Dennis quite a few tests as he talked with him and at the end announced that he had mild cognitive impairment, maybe borderline dementia. We knew that, but it was nice that someone else actually noticed it too. He is in favor of finding out why.

Not too long after the evaluation, the husband had his brain MRI, with and without scary sounding contrast medium. Very nice professionals conducted this testing with very little wait time. Mom and I had time to eat a light lunch while this was going on. We were done and on our way to the motel before 3 pm. The accommodations are clean, comfortable, adequate.

We rested, had a “comfort” dinner at Olive Garden and are back in our motel ready to get to sleep early.

Dennis was supposed to have a PET scan tomorrow but because it was not yet authorized, they postponed it until Thursday afternoon. I’m hoping the insurance will cover it because Dr. Jones said it was probably the most definitive test and will show whether he has normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or Lewy body dementia (LBD). We need to get authorized for this one and that is our prayer for this visit.

The lumbar puncture will take place on Thursday morning. The neuro-psych evaluation was scheduled for next Monday but we are going to be waiting for cancellations the next two days and hoping to get it done this week. It’s a nice enough motel but not where we want to live for that long.

Other appointments the doctor felt to be necessary were another sleep study and an ophthalmology work-up. Those can be done later in October – we will come back for them.

So far, so good. Thank you to all who have prayed for the success of our trip. It is going as well as can be hoped for.  We are in fairly good spirits.