Pinky on Nuclear Medicine

Deep in the bowels of the UW Medical Center lurk the hearts and souls of badge-wearing, white-coated, lab rats, eager to inject you and strap you down to machines only saved from medieval metaphor by the obvious GE logos emblazoned across their humming sides.

Since I had never been subjected to bone scanning of the radioactive variety before, I came prepared with my usual curiousity (flavored by a little bit of fear and tons of frustration that nobody can seem to decide what to do with the tear/fracture/cyst in my left wrist-let's just blame mountain-biking in Colorado). For me, curiosity manifests as questions and the insatiable need to SEE what they are looking at behind the curtain.

So, at 10 am I get an IV and get what looks like a horse syringe filled with unpronounceable isotopes plugged into my right arm....then, of course, I get strapped to the mobile device-thingey for 10 minutes to check the positioning. I get to come back after a brief interlude (you can go in secret places in the hospital if you have an IV shunt hanging out of your arm...bwa ha ha, rubber gloves, anybody?) and then they look again.

The lag between the injection and positioning and actual "reading" of the results is SIX HOURS.....With my trusty Blackberry and the newest Gregory McGuire book tucked at my side, I began to roam. (Yes, bossman....I was checking emails, making calls, etc.....while I was exploring.)

Since UW is in the heart of Starbuck's country, I had several choices of venue from where I could acquire the non-fat latte addiction of choice and then venture forth. After my first experience with the hand surgeon (unnamed but he worked on the Husky QB thumb fracture), I was eager to see if evasive, horrid bedside manner was actually TAUGHT at the school itself . One research obstacle that I had to overcome was that it is impossible to tell in a 2 billion acre medical center which of the scrub/white-coat/badge wearing personnel are doctors, students, or janitors. The camaflage was stupendous. I am dressing like a doctor/student/janitor for Halloween. I think it will take twenty years of my age. Most folks who didn't appear to be patients DID appear to be between the ages of 12 and 23. I thought it took YEARS to even become a resident.

Even more All-Hallow's Eveish is that you can pretty much go anywhere in the hospital without being challenged.....if you have a shunt in your arm and stride with purpose. From mystery book reading, I am sure there are medical centers more labyrinthine, but I would enter the basement of UW in any B-horror movie location hunt. Any double door you go through leads you to a corridor that involves a hook to the left or right. I have always wondered what is in the space between the corridors and I still don't know, but I am sure it has a GE logo. Things hum really loudly or they thunk. It is very cold and the flourescent lights flicker and die. Sometimes, you accidentally hit the right double-door hallway hook combination and arrive in an atrium area. Then you get Starbucks.

This was like an on-line fantasy game from my wildest nightmares. And, I was radioactive. And they told me that a RADAR gun would pick me up. I asked one security officer if he would try and zap me as I ran back and forth across the crosswalk; he was spectacularly not amused.