Coming to the Mayo Clinic is the best thing and the worst thing I could have done.  The best because this is where I have a team of specialized doctors but the worst because I cannot be close to my daughters Melissa and Stephanie who want to be on this journey with me.   I miss them so much and wish they could be a part of my time of healing.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota is 1192 miles away from our home in North Carolina and since I had to return for my post op visit in less than two weeks William and I decided to drive down to Missouri and spend time with our family there.  Our first stop in Missouri was to spend three days with my sister Tammy.  I knew without a doubt that she would make sure I got the rest and relaxation that I needed most right now.

All I had to do was look around her home and I was immediately reminded of my sweet mother and my other sister Missy.

During my stay with Tammy, my brother-in-law Willis delighted me with his famous fish fry and William and I ventured downtown to walk around the Westminster College campus.  There is something very interesting there that I’d like to share with you – The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, a 17th-century chapel designed by Sir Christopher Wren, also the architect of the far more famous St. Paul’s Cathedral.  The church was taken apart brick by brick and reassembled here on the campus of West Minister College in Fulton, MO.

The church also houses the National Churchill Museum.  The curious connection began in 1946, when Churchill — with some prodding from President Harry Truman, a Missourian — came to Fulton to accept an honorary degree from Westminster College.

Outside the church, eight sections of the Berlin Wall serve as a monument to the years when it was a very real division between communism and freedom. Now a work of art titled “Breakthrough,” the wall contains cutouts of two human forms.

 

My stay at Tammy’s would include a trip to Columbia to see an outdoor play called “Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”  We had a wonderful relaxing stay with Tammy and Willis – it was just what the doctored ordered!

The next three days we went a little further south to our cousin’s house on Lake of the Ozarks.  Again I would find such great attention to helping me heal.  Harriet, Dick, and Jill were absolutely wonderful.

Harriet said she would find some great vegan recipes but I asked for my favorite – Faki.  Harriet makes the absolute best Greek version of rice and lentils and I knew it would be something that I would not only love but it would be easy for me to eat after my throat surgery.

Some days we would all just sit, relax, and talk on the porch.  Sometimes William and I would go down to the boat docks and take a nap in the reclining gravity chairs.  And William would even find time to take the wave runner jet ski out on the lake.

It just so happened to be Dick’s birthday so we all went out to celebrate that grand occasion.

And Harriet and Dick took us to Wilmore Lodge where we would learn how the dam and lake were created.

Deciding to visit our relatives in Missouri was one of our better decisions.  I now was quite healed and ready to return to the Mayo Clinic to meet with my surgeons to discuss the success of the surgery and what additional treatment would be needed.