February 12-16: Our Trip to Mayo Clinic Part 1

It was Wedensday February 12 and we were off to Minnesota. We were planning on being there for 3 days and hopeful to find some kind of answer.  Surprisingly I felt pretty darn good. Having NaCl back on baord gave me a little energy boost and everything seemed ok. Which made me feel like a real idiot heading into my appointment the next day. On February 13 we meet with Dr Natt. She spent every bit of 50 minutes with us. She reviewed labs, looked at tests that were done locally, and most importantly she LISTENED. She heard that what I was going through was not normal.  She picked up on my shortness of breath.  She ordered some cardiovascular tests, some more routine SIADH labs, and more specific labs to look at cancer markers.  She had radiologists there look at my head MRI to rule out ENT tumors that could have been missed. Additionally,  she reviewed the report on the CT they did at home of abdomen, chest and pelvis and scheduled me a follow up for THE NEXT DAY.

On Friday February 14 we had our follow up with Dr Natt. Surprise everything was normal except for SIADH labs. I was so frustrated. And to top it all off, my sodium had only gone up 1 point in over three days. Nothing was making sense.  It felt like a complete waste of time and money. I could not believe that they didnt find a solid answer. I pretty much pleaded with the doctor, "there has to be something else we can do." She excused herself from the room and went to talk to endocrinology in the hospital and radiology. About 15 minutes later she returned and said there is only one more test we could do and its a full body PET scan. YIKES!☹ Not only was that scary it was 2pm on a Friday afternoon and our flight was leaving the next day! Want to hear God laugh...…..Tell him your plan!

When I say there is no place like Mayo Clinic, there is truly no place like Mayo Clinic. Dr. Natt fought for me, she heard me, she wanted to help me. She did not want to blame me for drinking to much water, or say anxiety was causing this. She was not ok with leaving me on NaCl indefinitely. In 15 minutes she was able to pull a team of heads together and figure out another step. And that's just the begining. 

So here we are, its Friday afternoon, and we have to try and find a way to scan my entire body to look for what is deemed the last piece of the puzzle. The "scheduler" (and I use that term in quotes because these people do way more then just schedule appointments for you) was on the phone for close to two hours talking to insurance, billing and processing at the clinic, talking to radiology trying to get us in ASAP...….and that was Monday! UGH MONDAY- like in 3 days!  And even Monday may not happen because it was most likely going to need authorization or what's called a peer to peer between Dr Natt and BCBS.
We almost said forget it, we almost walked out, we almost took the chance of coming home and having it done here which would probably take at least a month to schedule. Somehow, someway, we decided to stay and take a chance that insurance would approve it and fly home later that day or the next.

There is not much of anything to do in Rochester, MN in February.....Our weekend was pretty uneventful- and that's not what this is all about anyway.