A Day in Chicago

There is a very good reason that I don't live in Chicago. 3 words - Crazy Taxi Drivers...

So I had an appointment today at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago with a liver doctor. My appointment was at 10:00 and I figured that 2 hours would be plenty of time to get there from the western suburbs. Bad planning. Traffic started bad when we (my wife and I) left the house and then it just got worse as we got into Chicago. At one point there was a stalled car sitting in the far left lane. Unfortunately we were in the same lane but we were able to go on the shoulder and squeeze between the car and the retaining wall. Traffic was stop and go for too long and around 9:30 we were thinking that we would likely be 30 minutes late to the appointment.

Finally something happened and traffic lightened up and we were able to drive the last 5 miles in pretty good time. We pulled into the hospital parking garage a couple minutes before 10:00. After squeezing into a parking spot on the 7th level of the garage we raced as quick as we could into the hospital and then up to the 14th floor (after changing elevators on the 13th floor) to my appointment. Thankfully it wasn't a big deal that we were a few minutes late. This was my first time to this hospital so there was quite a bit of paperwork to fill out. I had just sat down to start on this when I heard my name called and we were escorted to an examination room. The paperwork got filled out later as I waited for my doctor.

It looks like I will need liver surgery to remove the growth (hemangioma) that I have on my liver though the doctors are still discussing this and I will know something more definite early next week. I don't mind the surgery if it resolves the pain that I have been feeling lately.

Lessons learned today:
1) Northwestern Memorial Hospital has pretty good cafeteria food (though it was kind of pricey).
2) Taxi drivers in Chicago don't need an excuse to use their horns and the city could save money with the lane markers as the cabbies don't pay much attention to them either.
3) A validated parking ticket at the hospital means that they only charge you $10 for using their garage instead of requiring you to mortgage your house to pay the regular rates.
4) A number of cars were parked in 2 parking spots instead of one. This is either due to the spaces being very very narrow or is a way to make a statement about the parking rates.