ByTerry Woster
Today at 9:00 AM
As we waited at the edge of the Avera campus to turn onto Cliff Avenue after a medical appointment recently, Nancy said, “I can see why so many older people move to the Sioux Falls area. No travel for healthcare visits.’’
The appointment was one of a string of healthcare trips we made during the past spring and summer. We are fortunate here in Chamberlain that Avera has a rural access clinic and Sanford a hospital. We can handle many of our medical needs at home. Sometimes, though, a specialist is needed. This was one of those times, and I think both of us were wishing the entire medical complexes of Sioux Falls and Rapid City — Mitchell, Aberdeen and Yankton, too, since we’re dreaming — had been built on the east shore of the Missouri River. Great fishing, easy interstate access.
If not Chamberlain, then Mitchell. Nancy and I were both born there long ago. Our daughter spent a couple of nights at the hospital as a 3-year-old after eye surgery. These days, I see a retina specialist there
I’m not complaining about travel. We are fortunate to have services we can’t get at home available within South Dakota driving distance. Many folks have it worse
I didn’t talk about how lucky we are when Nancy made the remark about old people and Sioux Falls. We were just tired and ready to be home. After as many trips as we have made recently, we know exactly how far home is from the Cliff Avenue turn – and from every service station, grain elevator, creek crossing and mile marker between there and the river
I changed the subject. I’m famous for that within the family. I said, “Well, but did you notice that the edge of that plaza we just left is probably exactly where that little house we rented was located when we were first married and you were working at McKennan?’’
I know the title is Avera Health, just as I know Sioux Valley is Sanford. But the core building where our first two kids were born will always be McKennan to me, and the tiny rented house a block up 21st Street from Cliff will always be the place I drove the ’62 Impala to after a shift on the sports desk at the Argus Leader. On the December Saturday morning when our first child decided it was time, Nancy and I walked to McKennan through the pre-dawn shadows, stopping a time or two for contractions, worrying we didn’t know what we were doing.
(We didn’t, but that’s another story. What couple, even the ones who have read every book, magazine and pamphlet available on child birth, has the foggiest notion what it’s really going to be like. That’s part of the magic of it all, maybe.)
The nuns at McKennan and kindly Dr. Volin made sure everything was fine. They did the same a year later when we brought a boy into the family and turned our daughter into a big sister. Then we moved to Pierre for half a century. Somewhere between that move in 1969 and our visit to Avera the other day, our first home as a family fell to progress. And that’s fine. For us, it served its purpose
For a half century in Pierre, we raised a family, added a second son and watched the medical community of central South Dakota grow in size, personnel and access. We found healthcare people as we needed them. Over time, the first doctors, optometrists and dentists who treated us grew older and retired. It wasn’t easy to transition to new medical people after two or three decades, but we did. When we moved to Chamberlain, seven years ago now, we each kept our primary care doctors in Pierre. We still have them. The jaunt across I-90 and up 83 isn’t bad. We travel when we must. When we can, we use Avera’s clinic and Sanford’s hospital here at home.
It’s been 80-some years since Nancy and I were born in Mitchell. Chamberlain was between hospitals, as I understand it. You might say we were born knowing about traveling for medical care
By
Terry Woster
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