Demon Clinic Round II

So my parents were somewhat indisposed come my next trip to Cleveland, so my Aunt Sue and her husband, my Uncle Rich, and their youngest daughter, Carrie, decided to take a road trip with me up to Cleveland, because they'd never been there and thought it would be fun. (Hah hah!) Carrie, especially, would enjoy it because of the Great Lakes Science Center and aquarium, since she loves animals, particularly ducks (or at least did at the point...not so sure about now). So armed with another lovely itinerary and a small suitcase for the overnight--we were actually going to stay in a real hotel this time, as opposed to the gloom-inducing guest house-- we headed up to Cleveland.

We made good time until we got to the city and discovered that inside Cleveland, or anywhere close to the clinic, there is not an abudance of Days Inns, or whatever. So we drove down Euclid Ave. in search of non-dodgy lodging. Let me tell you--Euclid Ave. is, essentially, 300 blocks of ghetto. I didn't even think that was possible until I saw it. And, of course, it was raining on and off. My aunt, uncle and I were not too thrilled to be in this kind of neighborhood, but Carrie didn't seem to mind, rolling down her window and chattering until my aunt firmly told her to roll up the window and keep it up. Carrie obeyed but I'm not sure if she knew why. :)

Eventually we ended up in a 'suburb' outside Cleveland, about 20, 25 minutes away from the clinic, where we found a Hampton Inn (with a pool for Carrie, eve better) and a Joe's Crab Shack, where we had dinner. The reset of the night was spent in the hotel, since the neighborhood was kind of shady, and we needed to get up early the next day, anyway.

We got out of the hotel quickly the next morning and had breakfast at a 'safe' McDonald's. :) Aunt Sue went with me to the clinic while Uncle Rich and Carrie explored Cleveland's cultural and scientific wonders.

I went through the normal test battery--CXR, blood draws, 6MW (6 Minute walk, for the uninitiated), and all that, including the PFT test that requires you to hold your breath for 10 second while they measure Co2 (I think) distribution through your lungs. The fact that I couldn't hold my breath for 10 seconds really irritated the tech, but the whole time I'm thinking if I could do that, I wouldn't be here! Hello! When we did the 6MW, if my stats dropped even slightly, they wanted to hook me to oxygen. I mean, these people are just chicken littles "R" Us, let me tell you.

I met with a different doctor, who could not believe that I wasn't on home oxygen, given my numbers. He asked me a bunch of questions to see if I needed it, like "do you get dizzy? Lightheaded? Blackouts?" etc., etc. After I answers "no" to all these questions, you could tell he thought I was making it up, or something. So he started talking about home O2 therapy, and I'm thinking heh, heh, whatever. Unless God to me to do it, I wasn't gonna. These guys weren't my docs yet.

Fortunately they let me go, with another appointment in 3 months (they wanted to start seeing me more "often", oh the joy!), and we managed to get home without incident. Until the clinic called a few days later...