August 2025
by Summer Rice
The Mall of America was a bucket list place for my pALS, my mom Kelli.
She has always loved shopping so what better place to go on an adventure than to the biggest Mall in the country!
Her best friend Shara and her niece, Shay, joined us on this road trip/girls trip!
Together, the four of us experienced the mall and did lots of shopping. Mom and Shara visited the aquarium inside the mall.
The best part of the adventure was getting away and spending quality time with one another. We all shared stories of past memories with each other, we grew closer from navigating this trip through traffic and picking what restaurants to eat at, helping each other find the souvenirs we were all looking for and acting as a team to unload and load the vehicle each time we stopped!
Although the Mall of America was super fun and an experience in itself, The Cabaret at The Guthrie Theatre was so incredible and definitely unforgettable!
After the musical we visited Gold Medal Park and then ate dinner at IKEA and walked around the showroom and shopped some more.
On our way home we stopped at an Amish store and bought lots of goodies!
When we arrived at the hotel in Bloomington where we were to be staying for three days, we realized we had forgotten the portable shower chair!
Luckily the room that the Team Gleason Foundation booked for us was fully ADA accessible and the shower had a foldout chair that was attached to the wall!
However, the seat was not very deep and there were no arm rests, so we were nervous about unhooking the sling from the portable electric Hoyer lift that we had. So, we improvised and covered the battery and the electrical parts of the lift with a trash bag and a towel to protect it from water splashing while we were running the shower nozzle.
We lowered the lift arm enough where mom was firmly on the seat but still high enough where the sling was snug to prevent her from falling off of the shower chair and it worked out really well. It took all three of us (Shara, Shay, and myself) to work together as a team to accomplish this!
As my mother’s full-time caregiver, this adventure meant so much to me to be able to take her to a place she has always wanted to go.
To see the smile on her face from the joy and excitement of all the places we went and all of the things we got to see really makes my heart so happy that she was able to do this!
