NIHing.

4th Floor, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health. I am parked in the waiting area, outside conference room 4C304, where Jeff is answering some test questions for Dr. Snow, the neuropsychologist. At least I presume he is answering the questions in some fashion. The last time Jeff participated in this form of testing was in 2007 at Johns Hopkins, and the results served as one of the the bases for our Alzheimer’s diagnosis. (Even though the neuropsych part itself suggested a variant which, we’ve come to realize, was the more accurate track.)

Among the things I’m sure of in life is that Jeff isn’t going to perform swimmingly on this testing today and tomorrow. Another thing I’m sure of is that he’ll be glad to have it over and done with at the end of tomorrow’s session. On the plus side, the results, combined with the two scans we’re scheduled to complete today—one an MRI, the other a PIB PET scan which highlights amyloid plaque deposits—will (I hope) provide us (as in me) with a good working understanding of Jeff’s precise species of difficulty, the relative slope of his progression, and a prognostication derived from those elements. In return, NIH gets another set of data to apply to current and future research. Oh yes, and I get a small helping of caregiver guilt, stemming from the fact (which became obvious once we jumped into this study) that Jeff has had enough of this nonsense. That we’ll be finished tomorrow is what keeps my engine pulling us over this one hill.

To my right, a blondish kid who looks like a linebacker for the peewee football league is playing around with the waiting room computer. Directly in front of me sits a bin for commingled recyclables. (nice going NIH.) To my left, a print on the wall called “Still Life with Otis.” Actually, it’s probably not called that, and Otis does not even appear in the picture, but the tablecloth is pulled so askew that I’m almost certain he’s been there.

Dr. Kreisl just popped by with the room service menu so I can make us a lunch selection. Thing is, I’d rather just skip the hospital food and eat the apples I brought (we had a big breakfast,) but I have a weird neurosis about not telling people “no. I don’t want it.” So I picked a tuna salad sandwich and some chips and orange juice. We will be happy to share.