Today was my last day of the protocol! Amazingly enough, there were still some things I hadn’t done!
Although it was (to this Californian) slightly freezing, the view from the dining room this morning was gorgeous. 
Headed over to Building 10 at the very reasonable hour of 9 to get an ECG, which thankfully turned out normal despite a slight irregularity on my EKG from yesterday. From there I went and got a needed OB/GYN appointment (so happy I could squeeze that in, get the needed test, and stop the awkwardness when registering for Kaiser appts)!
Squeezed in lunch – burrito bowls from the cafeteria counter Mexican area that once again had no tacos. Do they just run out, or do they really not buy enough for any day?
After lunch I had my second MRI, where they did something fancy and added color to it (no IV or anything for me, just computers!). Cassius was unimpressed with MRI attire – guess I smelled weird!
After the MRI (where I once again forgot about the music option, grrr!) I went upstairs and did a funky computer task trying to recognize faces.
Went back again to Rehab Medicine for my last appointment of the trip – and one I’m getting paid for! I participated in a study that’s seeing whether 3D images are as good as XRays for measuring scoliosis. Today I stood in front of a few cameras with a bunch of strategically placed washable purple marker dots on me and had a 3D image taken of me that they will compare against my XRay. I hope this does work out as I think it’s a great thing to reduce XRays.
After that we ran to the gift shop and picked up t-shirts (they really need “I spent a week at the NIH Clinical Center and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” but I like what I got. Then we touched base with the recreational therapist who gave me more coloring stuff – she said I could’ve had an appointment with her this week, too bad I didn’t know about that! But these will be fun and a good memento of this experience! 
Last thing before concluding this daily not-quite-live-but-slightly-timely blog series (Rare Disease Day and a NIH study wrap-up next week) is something that just made me laugh: NIH is a place where wheelchairs ride elevators by themselves. Got on and it was there, got off and no one was claiming it… who knows! 
Natalie Abbott 