Chicago

The Chicago trip summary, in a nutshell, is that the trip didn't result in any major changes, yet. They're interested in doing the kidney/pancreas transplant she wants, but first they want to know more about why she needs oxygen. Kaiser had done a few tests last year, to try to understand it, and then sort of gave up, and fell back on just making sure she has it all the time. So we're hoping U of Chicago will push on Kaiser to get a better answer, that will allow her onto the transplant candidates list.

The trip itself was a bit of an adventure. Our outbound flight held for a long time, then eventually diverted to Indianapolis, due to thunderstorms camped out over O'Hare. It was entertaining, listening to the controller negotiating with all the holding flights, about the possibility of taking a longer route that might eventually result in an earlier landing time. He didn't have many takers - most of us didn't have enough gas. It was so moist at Indy, that the plane's air conditioning was putting out a sheet of fog above the windows. Very eerie. We arrived at O'Hare several hours late, but all the logistics still worked out, to pick up oxygen at the airport, and have a bunch of extra tanks waiting at the hotel. We enjoyed an awesome, albeit very late, dinner at the top-rated Rosebud steak house the first night, had a so-so dinner at Vivere on Wednesday. The highlight of the trip, at least for me, was poking around the neighborhood on 57th street in the Hyde Park area near the University of Chicago, before we left. We had lunch at a noodle house there, and bought sandwiches for the plane at a local market. We came across an airport shuttle while walking, and jumped aboard for a long ride to O'Hare in stop-n-go traffic, with a chatty and informative, very delightful shuttle driver.

I took some pictures on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Nothing spectacular, more just documenting that we really went on this whirlwind trip.