Nice Offer From Future Mother In-Law

I had a dinner out with my fiancee's mom tonight, and she offered some help to me. She knows I've had pains a long time now that nobody can figure out. She offered to pay any and all expenses if I wanted to get checked out at Mayo.

I'm kind of proud of taking care of myself, and will just wait 'til I meet my deductible with the Remistart rebates... but I thought it was really nice of her.

That's awesome. I go to Cleveland Clinic (3.5 hours from me) and hotel stays around appointments/hospitalizations get expensive.

Why not Mayo Pathogen?

That is wonderful!

I've heard nothing but great things about the Mayo Clinic. My MIL was OD'd in the hospital with steroids and ended up going to the Mayo. They ran every possible test you could think of and she met with all kinds of doctors in an orderly fashion who kept her paperwork together. It was all in one place. In the process of treating her, they discovered she was also allergic to butter and oranges. Knowing this helped her tremendously as she was getting sick all the time from eating things with butter in them and had no idea what the cause was.
That was well over 20 years ago. I think she needs to go again because she has been having bizarre auto-immune skin problems that come and go on various parts of her body and other unexplained pains and ailments they could probably help her with.

Levi said...
It's a trap. Don't fall for it. j/k :)

I know... right?! lol

While you can say a whole lot of good things about Mayo I agree that the bottom line for a UC'r is that they would be worthless, unless you've been going to bad doctors or offices. Mayo has no magic pills they can give you. It's all the same ole same ole.

Eva Lou said...
regardless of where you'd go, I wouldn't take that offer. You'd be beholden to her forever! Maybe I'm just too cynical, but uh-uh. Deal with it on your own, you'll be happy you did years down the road. It's a little weird for her to make that anyway, don't you think? Are you 2 close? Definitely decline gracefully.

Eva, her and I are kind of close in a way. The first time I met her with my fiancee a couple months into dating I had this very in-depth passionate conversation about simple living, philosophy, careers, life purpose, spirituality etc... My life has been so crazy lately that I haven't had time to talk with her in that way much, but finally I am catching up on things and I asked her out to dinner to talk and have fun. She loved it, as did I.

She is turning out to be a great person to have as a future MIL. I used to think she really hovered over my fiancee, but I think it was more that my fiancee had been using them as a sole support for so long that this is just what she was used to. At my fiancee's brother's wedding she gave a speech about how the two getting married would do things differently than her and her husband, and that they would absolutely respect those differences... but are there for them in any way they can be if they need them.

But yes, I still want to take care of myself if I can! It's just nice to have the offer.

To all those talking bad/good about Mayo, the reason she suggested it is because she has seen great results with relatives that couldn't find answers elsewhere. And Gary, I'd be going to essentially rule out other issues that could be causing these pains I have every day. They are not UC related. They are either caused by Remicade, or by some mystery infection/illness.

Wow! That's great that you have that option when and if you need it! You are blessed to have a mother in law who considers you family. I hear it doesn't happen often but it doesnt sound odd to me at all. Family looks out for each other.

If you have good insurance, it doesnt matter where you go- CC, Mayo, whatever will be covered to the hilt and your out of pocket will be the same as any cruddy old hospital, i.e. negligable. But if you don't have good insurance or are wdded to a HMO, a name place may indeed not be the wisest choice. Diagnostically Mayo and CC are like any other place really, except they are more aggressive about running every type of test, endoscopy and scan. They do bith have the biggest stable of experienced, state kf the art lapro surgeons, but many surgeons trained from those places are out practicing all over the country.

Here
www.mayoclinic.org/patient-visitor-guide/florida/billing-insurance/other-insurance-medicare-uninsured

i dont disagree, PK, but one can have insurance precleared before you do any procedures.  I am lucky, I have what is considered a "cadillac" PPO plan and have never had any fightback on any conventional med stuff from any provider.  Mayo, though, like CC is very mainstream and I totally agree that it is not going to dig deeper than AMA approved stuff, that's for sure.  It and CCs main strength is in having a lot of experienced lapro surgeons.