Back to Minnesota for Ariauna's 6 month Check up.....Day 1

Today Ariauna is day +179 and it is so hard for me to believe that it was almost 6 months ago that she got the greatest gift....A re-birth and even from a complete stranger, an amazing mother who was giving birth to her own baby and chose to donate her cord blood. Everyday I thank my Heavenly Father for this beautiful gift. Ariauna and I got up early to get ready to go to the airport, we are flying to Minnesota today for her 6 month post-transplant appointments. We are so excited to see the amazing staff and our Fanconi Anemia specialist at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital as well as some other dear friends in Minnesota. It has been a rough year and every visit comes with anxiety, nervousness and fear but praying and hoping for nothing but good news. We got to the airport with plenty of time, thank goodness. We were blessed enough to get our flights donated by American Airlines Kid Miles, which meant we would have a layover in Chicago. $1,000 is a lot of money to save by not having to purchase our own flights. Because the tickets were donated free except the taxes, we could not print our tickets online and had to go to the counter at the airport. We ended up spending a 1/2 an hour trying to get tickets. The guy was really nice, but some information in the system was missing so he had to call a few people to get it taken care of. We got the taxes paid and headed to security. I had already prepared myself for a complete nightmare and pat down because of the experience we had at the Minnesota airport when coming home. TSA says you won't have any issues going through security with medical issues and that they work with those kinds of cases. Well, I can tell you a different story than that in the Minnesota airport. Long story short, our experience today was not bad at all. We had Ariauna's anti-rejection medicine that has to be kept on ice, her Monday/Tuesday medicine as well as all of her Hickman line syringes, caps, alcohol wipes, etc. We made it through security with no problems at all, I didn't even have to have a pat down. Life is good!!!  Here is Ariauna and I hanging out at the Salt Lake International airport, just waiting for our flight.

Our flight left Salt Lake at 11:30 to arrive in Chicago at 3:35. We were almost a half an hour late leaving Salt Lake due to some other delayed flights. Our first flight to Chicago was three hours long. I cross-stitched on Austin's Eagle and Ariauna listened to music on her ipad, read her books, finished a hat on her hat loom and cross-stitched on her dish towel for a bit. They did serve us a drink, but they do not offer a snack.

Here are the American Eagle planes landing in Chicago, the weather was cold but not much snow there.

 

We got off our flight and found a monitor to find what gate our connecting flight was leaving from as we were only suppose to have a 1/2 hour between flights. We hit the bathroom and headed to find our next gate, it seemed like it was clear across the airport and we got there to find out it had been delayed an hour. So we got comfy and pulled out our lunchables we had brought with us, they didn't fill us up so we got an order of fries at McDonalds. About that time they announced our flight was now going to be leaving from a different gate. Ugh! Wouldn't you know the new gate was clear back across the airport where we originally landed. By this time I was starting to feel bad for Ariauna. It had already been a long day, she was carrying her backpack and pulling her carry on suitcase. So we packed up all of our coats and headed out to walk across the airport again. On the way we found a Harley Davidson store right inside the airport. We had to stop and take a picture just for Grandpa Watterson and my Uncles Jeff, Jeramie and Josh.

Our flight to Minnesota ended up being delayed almost another half hour. We finally got on board our next flight and headed to Minneapolis. It was only a 50 minute flight, so that was not too bad. Ariauna was about tired of wearing her mask by this time, as she has had it on all day. Here we are flying into Minnesota, it was very cold and snowy.

We got off our flight about 8:30 p.m. and headed to get our rental car. About a week before we left, Ariauna asked me what kind of car we were renting. I told her that you just kind of get whatever they give you. She said, wouldn't it be fun to rent a slug bug. I said, Oh Ari, I don't think they rent slug bugs. We got up to the Enterprise area, filled out the paperwork and the lady says, lets go out and find a car for you. As we are waking out we are talking with the lady and the comment that they probably do not rent slug bugs came up and she said, oh yes we do, in fact we have a red one available right now. She then asked if we wanted that one, I am sitting there thinking to myself, it is suppose to snow a few days and I am not sure how well a slug bug is going to go in the snow but before I could answer Ariauna had already told the lady yes and we were headed for the slug bug. Ariauna was thrilled. It was a brand new red slug bug with less than 3,000 miles on it, it was gorgeous. We got out on the road and then pulled off at the first spot to get our GPS all set up and ready to go. We typed in McDonalds so we could stop and get some dinner. I decided to get a picture under the light in the McDonalds Parking lot. Here is Ariauna in her pick of rental cars.

I have been very worried about the traveling part of this trip as I have never driven in any other state in my life before. I am so nervous about getting lost somewhere. We did get a GPS for Christmas so hopefully good ole Garmin does not lead us astray. I can just see us ending up in Florida or somewhere else. Once we got settled with our dinner in our lap we headed out to Ariauna's Bone Marrow Transplant Twin's house. Ariauna and her little friend Katya (Tya for short) had their transplants the exact same day and we were next door neighbors on the 4th floor BMT unit. So we got to know her and her family pretty well. We are going to stay with them for a couple of nights in Elk River. We ended up not getting to Tya's house until 9:30, we were given a tour of their house and shown the room we get to stay in. There house is out in the country and it is like having a cabin in the woods. It is beautiful, quiet and peaceful. The girls were so excited and immediately started playing and had a great time. We finally got them to calm down to go to bed at 11:00 p.m. It was a long day of traveling, but are glad to be here to see our friends and the medical staff we hold dear to our hearts.