2015 Familial Support Group Meeting - Getting there

This post will cover the days leading up to the 2015 Familial Amyloidosis Support Group meeting in Chicago. When Mom and I attended the familial meeting in 2013 she had dialysis in Chicago on Thursday and then not again until the Monday after the meeting, which was really hard on her. So when we planned our trip to the 2015 meeting we decided to schedule Mom for dialysis on Friday in Chicago, giving us all day Thursday to do touristy stuff in Chicago if we arrived Wednesday night. Alas, it wasn't meant to be, and making this trip without Mom meant I had two full days to myself in Chicago so I tried to make the best of it. I stayed at the Hilton at O'Hare Airport, which is where the meeting was being held on Saturday and Sunday.

We had booked a lake and river cruise for Thursday afternoon, and before traveling to Chicago I decided I just did not feel like going on the cruise by myself and would instead try to give away or sell our tickets. I took the train to downtown Chicago Thursday morning and as I walked through Millennium Park on my way to Navy Pier I decided I was feeling good enough to take the cruise after all. But when I arrived at the ticket booth there was a sign in the window stating all cruises for the day were cancelled due to weather. Well, darn. At least I was able to call their customer service number and request a full refund, so I guess that worked out after all. Then I walked to the end of Navy Pier and saw the bronze statue of America's favorite psychologist, Bob Newhart.

Bob Newhart

After eating lunch at Harry Caray's place on Navy Pier I made my way back to the train station, stopping at a few touristy spots along the way. The money museum at the Federal Reserve Bank was interesting, especially the huge glass-enclosed cube of one million one dollar bills.

$$$  A Cool Million  $$$

I would have walked around Chicago some more but it was an overcast, windy, cold day, so I called it quits early in the afternoon and headed back to the hotel.

On Friday I decided not to go into town, which turned out to be a mistake because the weather was great: sunny and not too cold or windy. I did enjoy the weather for a bit when I went for a walk outside around the hotel, and I spent most of the day alternating between getting some exercise and staring at my computer screen. (Part of my exercise routine was walking up and down the stairwell at the hotel, and for the next few days my legs frequently reminded me that I don't walk up and down stairs very often.) I did find Muriel Finkel late in the afternoon and volunteered to help her and her husband Steve unload some items for the meeting and store them in the meeting room. And that was about it for Friday since there was not an informal gathering the Friday evening before the meeting like there was for the previous two meetings.

The next post will cover the meeting itself.

=====Monthly Blog Status Update===== 

As of October 31, 2015:

Total posts: 158 (2 in October)

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One new country visited the blog in October:

Slovenia

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Edit 12-31-15: Corrected country count.