Another trip to Chicago done and over

Wow- I've got to say that I've made more Dr's trips to Chicago with Princess Bear (PB) than I can count at this point. What still amazes me is how absolutely exhausting this trips are. My mom & dad went with us since I'm still not clear to drive long distances let alone stop & go traffic in Chicago. The day started waking up at 5am. Now I'm not under ANY circumstances a morning person. Hell- if I'm up at 5am its because I haven't gone to bed yet! So up at 5 and in the car & on the road by 6:05am. My parents borrowed my brother in laws car under the theory that I'd have more room to stretch out my leg. Well that meant putting my foot on the arm rest of the front seat and that didn't fly. PB & I fell asleep about an hour into the trip since there wasn't much to do. An hour and a half later my mom decided to wake us up FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!!!!!! Ugh! I made good use of my time by putting on some make-up. I really need to do that more often! I look better & feel better! So we finally arrived at Shriners and as always its sit, wait, wait some more and then see someone for 5 minutes and what a lot longer. The medical photographer took new pics of PB and then we were put in a room to see the plastic surgeon. We weren't planning on seeing him and my dad had some questions for him so that worked out well. Unfortunately, the questions my dad had were questions I previously asked and my mom & dad didn't think I had my information correct when relaying it to them- guess what- I DID! I know y'all are surprised! The developmental psychologist, the sole reason for our visit, popped in the room while were were waiting and asked a few questions including if I'd brought a copy of PB's report card. She'd never asked for this before so I didn't have it with me. Shortly after that the plastic surgeon came in the room and spent all of 5 minutes with us. He gave us absolutely no idea when PB's next surgery will be. That means we can't plan the surgery to straighten PB's eyes. Since the dawn of Obamacare is upon us I'm really nervous about all of these up in the air procedures. We went back to the waiting area and I started filling out the paperwork the developmental pyschologist game me (one set was 4 pages and the other was 10) and wondered why they don't send this to my house ahead of time for me to fill out and then bring back all ready to go. My dad apparently had his panties in a bunch "and wanted to throttle me because I'm my usual irresponsible self and wasn't prepared for the visit" because I didn't have a copy of the report card the psychologist asked about. I tried explaining it hadn't been asked for so why in the heck would I bring it? Not good enough. It led to a huge fight with my parents and my mom telling me she thought that PB & I needed to move out because I'm never going to grow up while living here. WTF? The collective irrational thinking is astounding! The developmental pyschologist decided that she wanted PB to see the speech pathologist which I thought was already happening. Since her speech path here is useless I was fine with that. I got some great feedback from both of them which was nice. They both think PB has some problems with recall and memory which has me concerned but hopefully that can be overcome. I'm not looking forward to reading the report from the developmental psychologist since they tend to be quite harsh. We finally left Shriners around 3:15 (after arriving at 9:40!) so we managed to hit the road right as rush time was starting. That part of being around Chicago I do not miss in the slightest!!! Considering the slow start we made good time getting home and got back here by 6:45pm. It was a night of early bed times all around. Now my ankle is swollen more than twice the size it was when the trip started so I'm a bit worried about that but just glad that I have a nice quiet day by myself! I'm going to curl up with my copy of Urban Farm and read for a bit!