Once upon a time I got the nudge to get some acupuncture at this place that operates just across the street from a park overlooking a hill where you can see great vistas, including fireworks in July and Target all year long. I loved my acupuncturist - a former colleague of my husband’s who left when the alternative medicine element was cut from the organization for which my husband works. It is always nice to meet someone professional who look at you when you speak honestly about things and doesn’t look at you like you’re crazy on the one hand, or on the other, require a lot of handholding to work them down from lumping you in with a certain kind of theorist. He tracked with me everywhere I went in our conversation, with ease.
On my second appointment, I had a funny feeling about going in the room he was leading me too, but I used my willpower to override it. Once I was needled up, I began hearing a low-pitched alarm that sounded almost identical to the loud ones that go off in hotels when someone burns there toast or there is a fire drill. I remember those well from a trip we took the shore long long ago because our oldest slept through it, and I was amazed. I remember lugging the three kids to the hotel waiting room and thinking how good a workout for my arms it was, and hoping to God that my oldest was never was alone during a real emergency, and also somewhat envying her for sleeping so deeply, whereas sleep has been an intermittent struggle for me.
Lying on the table, I didn’t have an imminently bad feeling, but I started hearing cell phones going off and then I heard sirens in the distance, and altogether my rational mind started wondering if it could possibly be an actual emergency and if so, why was no one checking on me. I still didn’t have an “emergency” intuitive feeling, but eventually I felt aligned to get up and, fully needled, attempt to walk toward the door to at least find out what might be happening.
When the acupuncturist heard me say his name and came out of the other room, he seemed completely unaware of anything amiss; however I explained the noise and he said, “Hmmm…you’re the second person to report something like that, and both times, from that room…no one else has heard it. We listened together, and although the alarm had paused, it soon resumed. He had a curious streak in him and said he would go upstair and investigate. I decided to come too. My husband wasn’t due to pick me up for another few minutes, and I felt aligned to be curious too. I followed my inner nose to a man with a long ponytail and a friendly face at a desk. Eventually the acupuncturist joined me, although he left to rejoin his other patients at a certain point where I think he could tell I had the situation in hand.
Here’s what I learned:
Scarab has a science fridge in the bathroom of the building where the acupuncturist works. Scarab labs works with biologics and has the backup fridge in case the electricity goes out and they lose the samples at their lab. And the tech company that is upstairs from acupuncture that does digital sequencing of DNA and is owned by the same parent company, has their alarm go off if they are at risk for using too much power. Yep, you read that correctly, if you deduced as I did, that one lab that actually works with biologics is using as their “security” against losing their samples to an electrical fail, another site that is at high risk for an electrical overload. The guy I talked to was super nice and I think he was really well intentioned. I think he really thinks he is working on human health. He told me they are working on using modified ecoli “to make viruses…er, I mean, vaccines.”
I asked, “Is there anything else we need to do to make sure everything is okay and nothing bad happens?”
I hope that by asking the question, I got him thinking. After all, I truly believe he is a good person.
Share this post