In Cleveland, January 2008

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:03 PM Cleveland, Ohio I am on my last evening in Cleveland, Ohio. I have been at the Cleveland Clinic since last week. It is a long story on how I got here and I do hope to get it all down. I enjoy journaling but need to discipline myself to do some. It really is good therapy. I need to remind myself that it does not need to be about details. It can be about feelings and anything else I deem important at the moment. Linda and I met some interesting people while we were here. I was getting into the shuttle from the hotel to the clinic and we forgot my x-rays upstairs. I asked Linda to run up and get them. While she was gone, the elderly lady in front of me asked me (well, told me) to close the van door. She had a growth in her throat and she wanted to keep it warm. I gladly obliged. Her name was E and she is from Belgium. E is here with her daughter, D. E is having a number of problems. The first being the growth in her throat. Then she was having problems going to the bath room. E also has a blocked carotid artery. Her goal was to have some cardiac tests at the Cleveland Clinic and then head back home to Michigan to have the growth removed. We told them good-bye on Friday morning. After the tests they were on the road. Later in the late afternoon we ran into D on the skyway. Turns out E was having a stroke during the test and she was rushed to the ER (they threw her into a wheelchair and ran her threw the halls). The CCF decided it was best to do an MRI here. Linda and I went back to the ER with D to see E. She was in good spirits. Linda had to leave in the morning and we eventually headed back. I stopped in numerous times over the weekend to say hello, meet the entire family, and check in.