One of the rewards of laboring on a house project has been the gratification of accomplishing something tangible. While certain jobs like parenting or teaching require intrinsic motivation, knocking down a wall or planting a garden offer measurable accomplishment although maybe not perfect results.

The journey of uncovering a doctor and a hospital that can fully diagnose and treat Houlder dances in between the internal drive to help Houlder by looking into his eyes and knowing he is well and the external push to find complete, integrated and well-delivered care. In this process William and I did not spend a week or even a day without thinking about how his treatments were working and what else we should do. Mayo calling and his crashing synergistically gave a purpose. A real place. But, in our hearts we held uncertainty. Competing emotions of a loss of confidence in the medicine yet encouragement by some doctors who never stopped believing or wanting to help Houlder.

Two nights before we left, his new pediatrician drove to house to deliver his write up on Houlder, and it was by far superlative.

Walking into Mayo, we snapped some photos of Houlder wearing his Village Green Fair tee shirt to send into Collegiate. They have a contest to see where the tee shirts end up over break. I doubt there have been many hospital submissions.

Mayo is well designed, easy to navigate, full of light and art. Very appealing.

Minnesotans must be the friendliest people I have met. Sorry, Virginia, but hospitality has gone to the Mid-West.

While folks around the country voted on Super Tuesday, we met the super doctor of POTS and autonomic dysfunction.

Dr. Phil Fischer was funny and warm immediately calling Houlder by his middle name Love asking him the single most important question; "What do you want to get out of being here? Do you care more about diagnosis or ways to treat how you feel?".

I could wax poetic about how he talked with us for 2 hours followed by an interview by a researcher evaluating what worked and what did not.

In awe I looked at a pile of binders by the examining room door that had been delivered by hand in July by a wonderful SRA friend.

I could go on and on.

We feel good. Houlder feels exhausted but 100% that he will improve and he is where he needs to be.

The rest of the week is full of more tests.

We meet on Friday to go over all results. Every hospital should function this way!

Dell ripped out the bathroom floor and saw a movie with my dad; Frazer and Porter spent the night with friends. William got some office work in and few hours of quiet.

A super Tuesday by our standards.

57 doves in Peace Plaza -- tons of statues everywhere

porter and z having park fun

VGF

Frazer and Thomas drying some apples

an extra layer of ugliness for Dell to ripe out

dinner ambiance

Z and P hanging on

VGF

This pile of ice had melted by 3pm.

Thinking of William

Netflix thank you

calling in all the good juju!