Mayo Clinic Visits at Christmastime

My parents and I have been going back and forth to Mayo over the last few months for testing and `evaluations with different doctors.

If you’ve ever been to Mayo Clinic Rochester (Minnesota), you probably know how dead the town of Rochester is. I don’t mean “dead” like it’s a terrible place to live, more that it’s not a “vacation” spot or somewhere with a lot of attractions or little places to go and see. Being in Rochester for several weeks at a time at some points, even though there are days I especially don’t feel well, being stuck in a hotel room gets OLD. To the point where you just want to go OUT.

While we’ve been in this situation since October, it’s been especially difficult to maintain during this holiday season. Knowing all the cozy Christmassy things we’d be doing if we were at home, but being in a hotel room shuffling back and forth to the clinic everyday… It’s just a bummer.

If you know me, you know I loooove Christmas, and my mom knew this would wreck me mentally. So the last few weeks we’ve been here she’s researched different little Christmas activities for us around Rochester and it’s been really fun!! We’ve gone to the movies, saw The Nutcracker in a performance center connected to our hotel, and had hot cocoa dates in the sparkly hotel lobby to break up our nights in the room.

We also took a shuttle one of my days without appointments to Minneapolis, about an hour from Rochester, to go to the Mall of America! With me not feeling so great these days, we didn’t fully embrace the good shopping like we normally would have (years ago), but it was still crazy cool :) When we took that trip my Dad was in MN with us so it was fun to have him exploring with us. And malls at Christmas are the best.

Our favorite favorite favorite though was the “Holly Jolly Christmas Lights Tour”, a decked out Christmas trolly that drove around all the local neighborhoods with crazy lights and light shows in the yard (and the cutest local old man tour guide giving detailed intel on the home owners and waving to people he knew along the way!! lol!)

Hospital trips are HARD, and the further from home the tougher. And mannnn and I thankful for my parents for understanding that and making them as fun as they can be.