We had a long day in Hershey on Friday. We fortified ourselves with a breakfast from our favorite breakfast restaurant just a few blocks away from us: Diener's in Mechanicsburg. Found out that MASH class of 2011 can eat for half price for the entire school year until graduation! Anna's brother, Joel, may eat at Diener's more often this year! What a nice gift from the owner to the class of 2011!
After breakfast, we drove over to Hershey and dropped Joel off at Hersheypark. Then Anna and I went to find the new office which her pediatric ophthalmologist moved into in June. Beautiful, homey place---rooms which are much less "institutional". After the eye examination, Dr. M. rolled the stool over to the counter near where I was sitting, and looking and speaking rather seriously (so I was thinking, "Oh, dear . . ." and mentally prepared myself for bad news), he said, "Her eyes are . . . . better." Just a trace in each one! Such good news! I don't know whether the increased Methotrexate finally kicked in, or whether it's made a difference that Anna takes her calcium pill at a totally different time of day than the Methotrexate. Don't know why, but I'm so very thankful that we can begin the school year with an improved eye situation. We don't need to return until October!
After a quick trip to the scrapbook store at the outlets (for window shopping) and a visit to the Hershey Library (closed in preparation for their book sale, so we just sat outside on a bench to read our books), and a stop at the lab on the East Campus for blood work, we ended up at the main campus of the medical center and found our way to Radiology. We were recently there for Anna's MRI, so we're learning our way around that main building now (Anna's rheumatologist sees her in a different building on the other side of the campus).
A word of advice to anyone having any type of medical procedure done at a hospital, where you have various layers of people from different offices who are arranging and scheduling procedures: Always double check and verify the procedure you're scheduled for! I told the receptionist we were there for an injection to Anna's TMJ. As she checked her computer, she was confused, because the computer said that Anna was there for injections to her ankle or ankles. We got that straightened out, but I'm so glad that I mentioned what procedure we were there for. We think it probably became a problem when someone was coding in the procedure into the system. The receptionist told me to verify the TMJ procedure when we went back, and she told Anna to also verify the procedure, and told Anna that it's very, very important to speak up with confidence (not with hesitation) if she's ever in for a procedure and there's any confusion.
Anna had the same radiologist as last time (what an extremely nice doctor--we really like him!), but this time, she chose to have this done without any kind of anethesia (brave girl!). She told me that it was really rather cool. They had a screen where she could see her skull and her teeth and her spine, and she could see it move as she moved (she watched until it was time to get into place for them to insert the needle). That was so interesting to her. :o) It didn't take very long at all. I think I had only read a page or two of my book before the radiologist and nurse brought her out.
By the time we traveled over to Chocolate World to meet/pick up Anna's brother, Joel, neither of the kids felt like taking the Chocolate World tour. Hersheypark was PACKED with people that day, and we have many opportunities to visit Chocolate World throughout the year---when the tourists are gone. Good thing we didn't---The photo at the end of the ride would not have been a pleasant one. We were only about five miles out of Hershey when Anna was in misery and tears, with a hurting jaw and a headache (to be expected--she had just had 20 cc of cortisone injected into her tiny TMJ). Once we arrived home, she put some ice on her cheek and fell asleep on the couch. The next morning, though, she was feeling much more normal. It wasn't a "walk in the park" for those first few hours, but all is well in the end (at least for now).
