Ronald McDonald House Charities

   At the end of November 2017 when we started talking about possibly going to Michigan for Emma's airway surgery, Michael was nervous about the procedure while I had a million unrelated questions. I wanted to know where we would stay, who would take care of our dog, how we would pay the bills that I normally write checks for if we weren't getting our mail there, and would I have enough time off from work available? These worries were solved to our relief when Michael's mom drove down to get our dog and take care of her at their house. There is this new thing called The Internet, so that's how we are able to pay those bills, and yes, I had enough time off available from work for at least 3 months. When I was trying to figure these things out in November I hoped that there would be a Ronald McDonald House close to the hospital in Ann Arbor, just like there is one next to Arnold Palmer in Orlando. One night I looked that up and -hooray- there is!

   They actually have two houses. The Mott House is inside of the Mott Children's Hospital, on the same floor as the PICU and PCTU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and Pediatric Cardio Thoracic Unit). It has a couple washers and dryers, a living room and kitchen combo, and 12 small bedrooms, each with one twin bed, a recliner chair, and a bathroom. The main house is across the street and has 29 bigger rooms (some with two twin beds, some with three). According to the website it said that the patient's case worker is the one who arranges where the family stays, so the next morning and for the rest of the time before we flew up to Michigan in December, we kept calling our case worker in Orlando to make sure we would be able to stay there while in Ann Arbor. If not, I heard that sometimes hospitals will give hotel vouchers, but I did not want to have to pay to stay in a hotel for 8+ weeks. Luckily it all worked out, as everything usually does.

   We checked into the Mott House about an hour after we arrived on December 11th and got our kisses from baby Emma. We got a room key (like a hotel key card) that got us into the Mott House and our specific room. The first night we both fell asleep in the small bed, but when I woke up in the middle of the night I saw Michael sleeping in the chair, and when I woke up in the morning he was on the floor! Here are pictures from the Mott House:

    We were very excited when we were told five days later that they had a room available across the street in the main house, because then we both got our own bed. (One of the nurses made a call to check for availability after we joked/ complained about the tight quarters at the Mott House.) I quickly suggested that we scoot the beds together, since the office manager said that was allowed, but Michael enjoyed having his own space. So we slept like married couples did back in the 1950's, at least how they did on TV!! One of my favorite parts about living in the main house is that we get a mailbox, so we were able to give out the address and have received several wonderful letters and presents between Christmas and Valentine's Day.

View of the Main House from Emma's first hospital room.

   The kitchen in the main house is very large and has 4 stoves, 4 microwaves, 6 fridge/freezers, and a big pantry with lockers. Each room gets a locker for dry goods. We keep bagels and soup in there, but lately have been keeping most of our food in Emma's hospital room since that is where we are for a majority of the day between 10am and 10pm. Over the weekend one of Emma's primary nurses even bought us groceries. There sure is something to say about Northern Hospitality!! There is a calendar on the bulletin board above the mail slots at the Ronald McDonald House that tells everyone who (which organization volunteers) will be at the house to make dinner for everyone, along with what kinds of food will be provided. Occasionally it gets cancelled without much notice if there is a lot of snow, so everyone has to eat macaroni and cheese or cereal or anything else they happened to get themselves from the grocery store. Thursdays are always pizza days because it is provided for free in the Conference Room on the top floor of the Children's Hospital, courtesy of Delta Airlines.

   One week towards the beginning of our time here, two employees from a yoga studio made dinner and then provided a complimentary yoga session. I was the only one that attended, but I enjoyed it. I was hopeful when I asked if they did free yoga every Monday, but unfortunately they said no. We have been in Michigan for two months now and they have not come back yet. Last week the office put a sign out saying they were doing an errand run to Walmart for two hours and they could take six people, so Michael and I signed up. When the afternoon of the errand came around, we were the only ones who signed up! So the super nice volunteer driver said she would take us anywhere we wanted to go. We were able to go to Target and JoAnn Fabrics instead, and that was great because usually we have to pay for an Uber if we need to get groceries since there is not a grocery store within walking distance. The closest option is CVS and Walgreens in Downtown Ann Arbor, which we do walk to often.

   Unrelated to the Ronald McDonald House, I love that on Mondays in the Mott Children's Hospital, a lady from The Giving Library comes around with a cart of books and we get to pick one out for Emma to keep. Sometimes we miss her and they pick a book for us, but the past four weeks we have been there. The recent books we got were Miss Maple's Seeds by Eliza Wheeler, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt, You're All Kinds of Wonderful by Nancy Tillman, and a few weeks ago Michael picked a big book that has six stories in it including The Wizard of Oz, which is obviously the most important one. ;)