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100 day stay in Rochester, MN @ Mayo
Hello,
I’m working on narrowing our residence choice for my husband’s upcoming but currently unscheduled stem cell transplant for AML. I know this is a highly personal preference type decision, but would love some input from people with experience with this type of relocation.
A few background pieces: 1. We stayed at Kahler Inn for some prelim appts recently and have taken it off the list as an option. 2. We did also tour Gift of Life which is an amazing resource but for various reasons feel it’s not the best fit for us. 3. Transplant is likely mid to late February so winter weather/conditions and still in the crazy construction phase. 4. Lodging will be fully out of pocket for us as it’s not covered at all by our insurance.
Our current top choice is the Residence Inn connected via the subway just for ease of access. The two bedroom is $$$ for that length of stay but it seems like having two separate sleeping spaces (and one not being a sofa bed in the middle of everything) would be a good idea? Has anyone stayed there and have feedback? I figured that with all the return visits we will have to make post-100 days, earning points towards free nights might also be a good perk and we can use the, for follow ups.
Aspen Suites is also high on our list and they do have a shuttle and are slightly less expensive, but I wonder if the convenience of the Residence Inn is worth the extra expense.
I don’t know…this piece is more overwhelming to me than his month long induction at our home hospital. I feel like there’s so much opportunity to choose “wrong” and be stuck somewhere that isn’t a good fit but with a severely immunocompromised partner who won’t be easily moved to a new location.
Where did everyone else stay that wasn’t Kahler or Gift of Life?
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Hello! Sorry for the delay in replying to your kind and helpful messages. We did two rounds of consolidation and got our daughter off to the dorms to finish her college experience and it's been a little overwhelming!
Our next visit to Mayo is February 17th and just got word from transplant team that my husband has multiple 10/10 matches that they narrowed down to the top donors and have two on standby. So it's just a matter of getting my husband to the green light and we will be starting! That's an overwhelming message to get!! But great!
We are still considering our lodging options as the 2 bedroom at Residence Inn is looking like $25k for the 100 days and that has started feeling like a lot. Just weighing our convenience with finances and trying to decide if a little hassle might be worth paying less.
I'm still not sure what the process is for a middle of the night emergency and that's what's making me nervous right now. (I have clinical OCD on top of all this process which is managed and medicated but some things are slipping through hahaha) No one may have a good answer here but if a person is staying say at The Park like @dwolden mentioned, and they start a fever at midnight and need to "go in" what does that look like?? Where would someone park/drop the patient off? Is there an admit door at Methodist? Or do they go to St Mary's and get transferred? I'm completely overthinking allll of that but it's the piece that I can't picture.
I'm positive I will have more questions as we proceed. Thank you all for the guidance so far.
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2 Reactions@wifeatbedside anything transplant related (fever, chills, etc) you go to the Methodist hospital 9-4. And you call first. They will be ready. We had to do it once at night. I dropped him off at the Charlton entrance and the door is staffed 24-7. I have anxiety issues now myself so I honestly can’t recall if they brought him up or I parked in the Graham Ramp and ran back (and I do mean ran) while he waited inside in a wheelchair. I do know everyone was very helpful and kind.
There is an elevator at The Park and if he wasn’t able to walk to the car I ran to get it and he stayed near the elevator. Again it only happened a couple times.
The apartment was furnished but you have to have bedding, towels, dishes, most utensils etc.
We did have the misfortune of a heart incident while we were in Rochester that saw us at St. Mary’s ER. Which is also thankfully close to The Park.
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4 Reactions@wifeatbedside plus you will get so thoroughly educated at the transplant center. They have the answers to most everything. I do have the direct experience from The Park. If you’d like to talk on the phone sometime maybe Lori could help us figure out how to share numbers
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4 Reactions@dwolden Thank you! I sent a message to The Park to see what they may have available this spring. I’m such a planner in every aspect of my life and this leukemia nonsense sure doesn’t seem to respect that. LOL I do think after our Feb 17th visit a lot more will be clear and today’s confirmation that we have donors on standby helped morale a ton!
Hi @dwolden and @wifeatbedside You can easily exchange phone numbers by using the private message option.
Simply click on the avatar (photo) to the left of your name, or the person you wish to contact privately. That will take you to the profile page. Click View Profile.
Then you’ll see the notation for Send Private Message. A window will open for your private letter to that person.
They should receive a notification of the message or vise versa…If you don’t see it right away, check in the upper right hand corner of the page. You’ll see a silhouette of a person. (Which will also take you to your profile). Click that. It will then give a dropdown menu that looks like this:
My Profile
Settings and Preferences
Notifications
Messages
Help Center
The letter will show up in messages!
Let me know if you run into trouble! ☺️
@loribmt thanks Lori. You work here sustains me.
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3 Reactions@dwolden Hand to my heart, Dorothy, your comment was such a unique and meaningful expression. Thank you. I can’t tell you how uplifting that was today. Sending a virtual hug your way.
I’m sorry I didn’t see this sooner, but my brother stayed at the Hyatt House for a VERY reasonable rate. They have a housing program set up for transplant patients after one of the managers personally went through a transplant. He first stayed at a church sponsored apartment for no charge other than a donation, then moved to the Hyatt House for the remainder of his long stay in Rochester.