“He’s on an airplane,” I say. “But he should be in DC soon. With his phone on again.”

“We’ll keep trying him definitely,” Dr. Haddox says. And then his face gets tight. “But there is broad authority in potentially infectious situations like this for the government—the NIH in this case, though I suspect the CDC, too, eventually—to act in the interests of public safety.” That line isn’t his own. This doctor was given it to use. “Again, that doesn’t excuse the specifics of your situation. I suspect, honestly, the officers and EMTs panicked. They haven’t been told much. This is an unusual situation, and we’ve all been told to keep information flow to a minimum. They were trying to do their jobs. I’m not excusing what they did—”

“Except you are,” I say, but matter-of-fact. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, turning to look at the ground. “My understanding is that we’re only keeping you here so we can run some tests. We’ll need to do a simple blood draw, conduct an interview, make sure that nothing gets worse. We’ll give you all a course of antibiotics to treat the strep and that should be that. If this is PANDAS, the psychological symptoms generally resolve on their own fairly quickly.” Dr. Haddox looks up finally, meeting my eyes. Determination, that’s the emotion. He is determined to do his job right, to be trustworthy. And I do believe that he believes what he’s saying. I also know that is not the same thing as him being right. “It is strange to see so many people fall ill in a small geographical area, and PANDAS is a relatively rare, noncontagious condition. At least up until now. It’s raised questions about how you all might have contracted it. That’s why the NIH got involved, and they got us involved.”

“So you don’t work for the NIH?”

“Oh no, I’m just a fellow. I work for a research professor. My boss is an expert so the NIH reached out to him. And now we’re here,” he says like he’s still not sure how it happened. And is not happy about it.

“And you don’t know why they think I have this?”

“No,” he says. “They haven’t told us that. Just that they have reason to suspect you all do.”

You all. I am afraid to ask how many of us there are. And I’m not sure if it should be making me feel better or worse than when I thought I was being committed.

“Someone from the NIH is supposed to be here soon to go over all the details. I’m sure it sounds ridiculous that I don’t know, but I honestly don’t.”