Rochester’s Mayo Clinic Escorted This Minnesota Resident ‘Out the Back Way!’

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The Big Vacation Rule must be, "Get sick on vacation." If you can manage it toward the end of your time off, all the better. To prove it, I took a week or so off, and last Friday, the 25th, I came down with a sore throat, headache, and the worst sinuses since Sinus Day 1982.*

What's this have to do with Mayo Clinic taking me out the back way? Read on...or just click play (scroll down to hear the whole show that day).

Mayo Clinic Escorts Me Out of the Baldwin Building

When I was a kid, like 9 or 10-years-old, a hotel manager told me he would kick me out of the hotel for life if he ever caught me lighting matches in the over 100-year-old hotel again. That was the last time it was even suggested I might be helped to leave an establishment.

Until Monday.

I came home from vacation on Sunday, and Monday afternoon met up with my primary, Dr. Andrew Greenlund, on 5B, Baldwin Building in Rochester, Minnesota. When you're sick and have had a kidney transplant, you don't mess.

At the end of the visit, just to cover all the bases, they stuck the hose up the nose for a Covid test (it was negative, yay!). I've only had them done at the 41st Street testing clinic, so had no idea what was coming next.

Don't Know You Know Who I Am?

After the swab I was told to wait in the examining room, "Someone will be in to escort you out the back way."

--"What? Why?"

The response? "You've been a very naughty boy, Mr. Rabe, or should I call you by your Clinic Security Code Name, "Mr. Don't You Know Who I AM???"

And out the door they went, their maniacal laughter fading as their hushed footsteps grew distant.

Did That Really Happen?

No. No, it didn't. I wish it had, because that's a cool story, too, but I did ask, "What? Why?" and the answer was, "Protocol for anyone that's been swabbed." Keeping my contact with other people to a minimum. That's good, that's smart, and, cool!

An escort came to pick me up and I've never been through so many unfamiliar doors in my life. How Mayo employees do it, I don't know. It was truly a maze. Then, suddenly, one last secret door opened, and out I went, into the afternoon air.

Breathing deep the fresh air, I said to myself, "Self, you are going to have to tell this story on the air!" and I did. But I jazzed it up a bit, let's call it artistic license.

*There is no such thing as Sinus Day 1982. Google it and all you get is an ad for...

As always, if you have a comment, complaint, or concern about something I wrote here, please let me know: james.rabe@townsquaremedia.com

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