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.