Monday, January 26, 2009

Reflections on an MRI

So, as many of our readers know (all two of you), I had an MRI on Friday to diagnose a weird and terribly painful problem I have been having with my back. The short story is this: on January 8 my back started hurting, and by January 16 I was bedridden. I am now able to be up and around a bit but still with a lot of pain.

I had never had an MRI, and so I didn't quite know what to expect. So I did what any normal human being would do. I googled it. And here's the truth for me...too much information can be scarier than no information when it comes to medical stuff I don't understand. So I quickly left google and decided to go wildly into the unknown...or at least as wildly as a woman who can't walk very fast and uses a cane can go.

I got to the hospital and walked for what seemed like miles to the MRI center, only to realize that there was an MRI entrance that we somehow missed. I got into one of those robe that hides nothing...not even your pride and tottled into the MRI room. The chamber looked like a space pod. As a laid down and the tabled moved into the chamber, I thought of two things: 1) This is what it must feel like to be an astronaut, and 2) This is what it must feel like to be a cannoli. The chamber was tight, and I closed my eyes thinking that would make it easier to remain perfectly still for 20 minutes.

The tests themselves were kinda weird. They lasted from 30 seconds to 4 1/2 minutes each and consisted of a lot of noise and knocks. The first few made me think of pressing the escape pod in Spaceballs, or perhaps less creatively...a car alarm. The later ones made me flash back to my days as a music major. Every Friday we had to go to convocation, where we performed and/or listened to other music majors perform. Sometimes the performances were great. And sometimes they were experimental music, which I haven't always understood. The MRI sounds were like some of those experimental concerts...painful to listen to!

Finally, you know how sometimes you start to hear words out of sounds. Well this happened to me. Some of the words are ones I would publish on a blog, like "bang" and some were ones that I wouldn't. Needless to say, when I heard some of the unpublishable words, I had to find new things to think about so I wouldn't start laughing and mess up my test.

I should find out in the next couple of days what the results are, and I will keep you posted.

All in all, the MRI was not a bad experience. But then again, I'm not claustrophobic. If I had been, it would be altogether a different story.

Friday, January 9, 2009

The Refrigerator Door

My refrigerator door has always been a place to display achievements. When I was very young, it was that piece of impressionist art that I painted...that no one knew what it was supposed to be. As I aged, it became those good grades I got on a paper or test. That continued even through graduate school.



The number of cute or interesting or personal magnets has increased, while the number of pizza magnets has decreased. This year as the Christmas cards rolled in, I started covering the fridge with my friends' "achievements," the photos of their kids. And the truth is this...no one else can have kids! I have run out of room on the fridge!



But seriously, I love seeing the lovely faces of the next generation on my fridge. It gives me great hope for our world!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Happy New Year!

The new year brings with it all kinds of excitement, like going back to work after two weeks off (ugh) and even colder weather than in December (ouch)! But it also gives me and Vince the opportunity to redeem ourselves after a miserable fall of no blogging.


In just two days...that's right, two days...Vince and I will turn in our commissioning and ordination paperwork, respectively. We have been working hard on it for some time and will be glad to have it off our plates. Then we'll have something else fun to think about...INTERVIEWS. Our interviews are in early March. In fact they might even be on my 33rd birthday. I'm hoping that the religious elite treat me a bit better than they treated Jesus in his 33rd year. I figure I'm not nearly as radical as Jesus and just about anything is better than crucifixion! So, pray for us as we turn in our pages and pages and as we prepare to meet with the Board.


We hope to blog more in the coming months, and we look forward to reading all of your blogs as well. And if you have a blog and we don't know about it, let us know because we would love to add you to our online neighborhood.


So, as I sit here waiting for feedback on the $200,000 grant I just wrote, I am sending a little love to y'all out there! Peace to you this new year.


April, Vince and Gumbo on our new loveseat. Can you read Vince's shirt that my brother got him for Christmas? "You had me at shalom." Love IT!