Dorothy’s brother Randy, his wife Jo and I were finishing a beautiful lunch at the COHO restaurant in Tofte Minnesota. Tofte is about half way along the 100 miles between Grand Marias and Duluth on the northern shore of Lake Superior. We were there because Dr. Olson of the Grand Marias hospital emergency room had recommended it highly.. She added that we could look out on the highway and, when the ambulance carrying Dorothy came through, we could follow it to the emergency room at the Duluth Clinic where she had made arrangements to take care of Dorothy further.
After lunch and a long wait I called the Grand Marias hospital. They said not to worry and that an ambulance had been summoned from Duluth. It seems that one of the ambulances in Grand Marias was out of service and the second couldn’t be sent out of town in case they had to respond to a car accident or other emergency.
The problem with Dorothy arose when after a night at a lodge on the Gunflint Trail, some 50 miles north of Grand Marias, Dorothy complained of “not being able to get any air”, a racing pulse and other things. Brother Randy, a retired internist from Mayo Clinic, got out his stethoscope, said “Hmm” and drove about until he found a working phone. After consulting the cardiology people at Mayo Clinic where Dorothy had been given an ambulance ride and had a stent installed in her circumflex artery (for those medically interested) a week earlier he arranged for her to be seen by Dr. Olson at the Grand Marias hospital.
Dr. Olson knew how to find a good restaurant and she was a fine doctor as well. She rang all the bells at Mayo Clinic where Dorothy was last hospitalized and summoned our son Rob out of a Mayo Clinic Board of Governors meeting to get his view of things. I couldn’t help, however, admiring her trim muscular legs, evident between a short skirt and running shoes. I asked if she participated in the “birkebeiner” cross country ski run in northern Wisconsin. Yes, she had participated in seventeen birkebeiner events in the last eighteen years, missed one when she had to take the medical boards some years ago. We’ll cheer for her this year !
Our trip to the Gunflint was initiated at Randy and Jo’s Grindstone lake home lake home in Hayward Wisconsin. Dorothy said she’d sure like to drive up the north shore of Lake Superior, spend a couple of days looking at the color and the lake. She also wanted a good rest after her heart catherization and stent installation at Mayo clinic. Jo then took the initiative and arranged a trip through Duluth, on to Grand Marias and then up north to a sparking new cabin on a lake by the Gunflint Trail.
After her ambulance ride from Grand Marias the Duluth Clinic doctors admitted Dorothy to the hospital pronouncing her suffering from pulmonary effusion and cardiac failure. A heart catherization determined that her heart and the newly-installed stent were fine. The next problem was the lungs which called forth specialty services addressed to the lungs, infectious diseases, and rheumatology (possible interstitial tissue inflammation). The coordination of specialty physician services, the friendly and fault-free nursing care were a model of effective medical care delivery. After six days Dorothy was pronounced fit for a return trip to Rochester, Minnesota. There we moved in on again on Rob and family, took it easy and pursued matters further at the Mayo Clinic on an out-patient basis.
It all started at the end of August when we decided to combine a trip to Rochester, Minnesota to attend Dorothy’s cousin Art’s 90th birthday celebration (a grand family event) and a Mayo Clinic review with the rheumatology specialists of a persistent left side problem that kept getting worse. After an initial appointment or two there were no available appointments for a week so I decided to return to Ann Arbor. Dorothy stayed on with Rob and Becky at their home in Kasson, near Rochester. Rob went on a fishing trip and at 2:00 AM on a Saturday night Becky called me to say that she had called an ambulance and was en route with Dorothy to the Mayo emergency clinic in Rochester. They quit worrying about her leg and I arrived in Rochester on Sunday to find Dorothy scheduled for heart catherization on Monday. The procedure went well and she was discharged from the hospital the next day.
As described above in too much detail, from Rochester we proceeded to Randy and Jo’s in Hayward, then on through Duluth and Grand Marias to the Gunflint Trail, back to the Grand Marias emergency facility, back to the hospital in Duluth on finally on back to Rochester.
Family is wonderful ! All of the above went on in the month of September. Randy and Jo stayed on in Duluth until Dorothy was stable. Becky came up from Kasson to be with Dorothy and to make sure that, with all the drugs, Dorothy still represented her medical situation correctly. Our son Ted with Mona and their kids, Kirsten and Karl, visited in Duluth as they returned from Bayport on Lake Superior where they took their last sail for the season and put their sailboat in dry-dock. Somewhere earlier in the month, between hospital visits, we managed to get in a sail with them in the Apostle Islands and celebrate Ted’s and Kirsten’s birthdays at the Bayport Marina. Back in Ann Arbor Randy and Margaret attended to our mail and plants.
Friends also are wonderful ! Our neighbors the Suttons’ did everything needed to smooth our absence which extended fro a planned one week to seven. En route to Grand Marias and the Gunflint we stopped in Duluth to visit the parents of the pastor at North Church in Farmington Hills, Michigan. where we attend. We had gotten to know the senior Jensens’ when they visited Michigan. As we talked they mentioned that their son Mark Jensen was going to visit them in about a week. As I was pulling out of the Duluth hospital to take Dorothy back to Rochester I decided to call the Jensens’ from the car to see if Mark had arrived. He had, just five minutes before my call ! Mark said, “Hang on there Art, I want to visit Dorothy before you leave. I can then tell the Board of Deacons that I visited a parishioner at a hospital in Duluth”.
Doctors and medical care are wonderful ! Despite all we hear or even experience, our every doctor, nurse and attendant went far beyond the professional and competent and represented concern that can only come from genuinely dedicated and wonderful people. Much was done but nothing not specifically needed and the outcome was good. Dorothy has abandoned the hospital-provided wheel chairs which I pushed here and there between appointments earlier. I did note in the newspaper recently that Ford took a $125 million write-off from 3rd quarter 1999 profits to fund medical costs for retirees. Good thinking I’d say !
Speaking of the outcome, Dorothy went to the Mayo Clinic in late August to get help for an intractable leg problem. It’s now mid October and she did get what she came for.
When the rheumatologist was close to wrapping things up he mentioned the efficacy of physical therapy and pain control. I winced but he quickly said he’d talked with Rob about further investigation of a benign cyst on the pelvic bone. It was a “long shot” as the source of the pain but not yet fully checked out. He then scheduled an MRI-guided injection by a radiologist. Dorothy walked out of the procedure room and announced to me, “See, I can walk”. It may not be a 100% cure but it was a diagnostic triumph as to cause and a benchmark for the future. She now walks well and after too many medical by-paths in a long September and early October, life for us is on the way to normality again and we are very thankful.
From Dorothy:
Art seems to think our friends should hear all about this business and perhaps wrote too much. I feel remiss in not keeping in contact and causing some of you to pursue us in our travels and inquire about my welfare. Every day it seemed that in a day or two things would be sorted out and we could give specific news to those concerned. Most of all I can’t express the care, love and kindness from all of our often put-upon kids and their own kids as well. Brother Randy, sons Randy, Rob and Ted as well as our daughters-in-law kept me reassured and comfortable throughout as well as providing professional input from time to time where appropriate. Bless them all as well as the doctors, nurses and others who have done so much for me !