Day 4, mostly out of the NIH

This morning, Madison's space cadet nurse rushed in at 7:15 to remind us that she had an MRI at 8. It's a good thing she did, I would have slept right through it. We went to the cardiac MRI center. We walked past the "Mouse MRI" room and the "Animal MRI" room. The cardiac MRI took place in a different building than her abdominal MRI.
I stayed behind the lead wall with the radiologist and the tech. After about 30 minutes, another lady walked in our room and asked how much longer Madison's exam was going to be. Our tech told her about 10 minutes, and asked why.
"I need that coil for a pig".

Then she got fitted with her 24 hour blood pressure monitor, which is just a cuff attached to a small machine that she wears around her waist. It takes her blood pressure every half hour while she is awake and every hour wheile asleep.
She also went for an audiology exam today, where it was determined that she can't hear for shit, which I could have told them. She had pneumonia a couple weeks ago with a concommitant ear infection. In fact, she had a blister on one of her eardrums. She has finished her course of antibiotics, and although she is no longer complaining of pain, the blister remains. And sincer her ears are all jacked up, she is deaf as can be, but in a weird way. She can hear almost everything fine except background noise, and she talks very quietly. For example... we were standing about 20 feet from a fast moving train and she was talking to me in her regular voice and couldnt' understand why I couldn't hear her.
So when we get home we have to get her ears addressed.

But after that, we went to Washington DC! We rode the subway, which was exciting because everything moves so fast and no one wants to look like some Oregon rube who can't figure out the fare machine. But I was rubey.
We rode the Metro to the capital mall. I was surprised that the grass is splotchy and patchy, not lush and green. We went to the capital to take a tour. The walk was about 3/4 mile, and it was about 100 degrees and HUMID, so we were both hating life. In fact, by the time we got onto the capital grounds, I asked a golf cart driver to take us to the visitor's entrance. She had the machine on, she sorta looked disabled. Plus she's deaf.
Once we were delivered to the entrance, we had to go through security. Madison set off the metal detector with her monitor and was afraid she would have to take it off, but the guards were very nice about it. They weren't so nice about the empty water bottles I had in my bag. I had to take them outside and i was told to throw them away, in the trash. One of them was a giveaway from a radiology joint back home, but one was a pretty nice, new stainless one and I did not want to throw it away. So I asked a couple of guys in red Visitor Services vests if they wouldn't mind watching them if I jsut set them in the grass. They explained that the capitol police and the secret service frown on unattended stainless steel tubes and if I put them down the whole capital would have to close. They told me to put them in the special trash marked "water bottles" because that trash doesn't get empties as often, and maybe the bottles would be there when we got back.
So I did it. Then back through security I went. With scissors in my bag.
So out to the trash again.... this time I tried to balance my scissors on the edge of the can, under the outer box, so that I could maybe reach in and grab my scissors when we were done with the tour.
Then back through security I went.
I made it! And we were super lucky to catch the last tour of the day. We weren't able to see the House or Senate floors. Those areas are open to the public, but only with a pass issued by your member of congress, which can take up to 24 hours. Madison and I both enjoyed the tour quite a lot.
The we walked to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where we saw all kinds of air and space artifacts. Madison bought souvenir Air Force wings. The museum was really impressive, we spent about 2 hours there and we only skimmed the surface.
Did you know all the Smithsonian museums are free? Pretty awesome, I think.

We also got some results today, Madison's bone density is not super, so more calcium and vitamin D for her.

Tomorrow is the last test, the glucose tolerance test. Then we will go back to Washington and see the White House visitors center, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Washington Monument.