cogging the wheel...

Tuesday: Were we in Nevada? No desert to be seen. Must not have been Area 54. Perhaps it was Area 45. Aka NIH, or the National Institutes of Health.

Yes, we have once again plunged brain first into the sea of Clinical Research, where parking is validated and all the anglers wear white coats. As per the emailed instructions, I ferried us to the West (I think, or was it North...I think they like to disorient you) entrance on Cedar Lane, and we proceeded through the 12 steps of decontamination.

Well, we were thoroughly inspected, at least. You drive up to and almost over 3 orange cones, as gestured. You forget how to pop your trunk, thinking he meant “hood,” and instead get out and open the back hatch manually. While the guy with the funny wand gives your car the once over, you enter the gatehouse, wait for the lady to get off the phone, then present i.d.s for her scrutiny. Then they give you a yellow dashboard seal of approval paper, remove the orange cones, and dispatch you to the Parking Garage of  Never-Bring-a-Hummer-Here. Where there are no available spaces, despite the fact that you even threaded your car along the entire golf-cart width circuit without a scratch. You still have to turn your keys over to the guy with the impossible accent so he can double park you. You think. He might have said “I get good price. We give you pretty bicycle after.” But you couldn’t understand him, so you take your claim ticket and head through the double doors. At which point you switch back, narratively speaking, to the first person.

The thing is, everyone at NIH is nice. I don’t know why this is. I’m used to encountering folks who barely tolerate their jobs, no matter where I go, but at NIH they apparently take their hospitality training directly from Minnie Mouse. We arrived with 30 minutes to spare before we were due at admissions, and knowing our first day of rigmarole would be lengthy and arduous, sought a snack. So I stared at the “You Are Here” chart by the elevator, scanning for a coffeeshop. Not on there. At this point, very nice person #1 asked if we need help, and pointed us in the direction of the atrium wherein one may find an Au Bon Pain outpost. Hooray! Coffee! Tea! Cinnamon rolls! And an architecturally intriguing space in which to consume them.

At the appointed time, we presented ourselves at admissions where we were given a friendly greeting, a “welcome packet,” and a 45 minute wait time. The packet contained phone numbers and a booklet detailing the whats and wheres of being an in or outpatient at NIH. The waiting room contained people, whom I tried not to examine too obviously while secretly wondering what studies they were all into. Meanwhile, very nice person #2, who was something along the lines of “patient hospitality coordinator” checked that all was peachy with us, and it more or less was, give or take 45 minutes.

When our name came up, very nice person #3 checked us in, and we were escorted upstairs by the young lady who, evidently, administratively assists the physician in charge of our study. From here on in, things were pretty familiar. The doc explained the study, gave Jeff a check-over including the usual things like “draw these 2 interlocking pentagons” (no way,) “spell WORLD forward and backward” (half-way,) and “remember the words ‘apple,’ ‘penny,’ and ‘racecar.’” (2/3 of the way...not bad.)

This was only interrupted by very nice people #4 and #5, in the guise of patient advocates, whose job was to make sure we hadn’t felt coerced by our referring physician, and also to ascertain whether I was using Jeff as my entry in the Science Fair, but they apparently bought that since I’m only studying Japanese right now he was with me at NIH as a willing and semi-lucid participant. So we passed. And signed some papers that allowed me to sign all the rest of the papers.

Several bouts of poking, prodding, and EKGing later, Jeff was clearly pretty exhausted and our day at NIH was nearly concluded. Our little admin assistant showed us to the atrium alcove where we would obtain our “Extended Visitor badges” with photos (lordy, mine is bad,) and bade us farewell.

We are scheduled to return next week for the PET scan which will measure brain inflammation. Our new badges will let us bypass car inspection, but not--I suspect--the parking conundrum. This depends, of course, on whether the government’s playground standoff means everyone scoops up his marbles and takes them home for the week, or whether services including NIH will carry on as normal.

It will be shorter, and less tiring for Jeff. This time, I rewarded us with a pizza at Matchbox Bistro in Rockville, complete with beer in goblets. That helped a lot. Here’s how I can tell. After our early dinner, we got into the car. “Pleasant day,” Jeff remarked, as we settle in. I chuckled. “What did we do?” “Had food, took a nice ride,” he said.

Was it all gone? The atrium, the nice people, the mental calisthenics, the needles,  the paper signing? Well, for that moment a good feeling in the tummy was all that counted.