Sausages and Shipping Tubes

Today I went for an MRI of my head. There is a certain irony to having an MRI in Advent: the intrinsic waiting and stillness demanded. And there are correlations to the pre-Christmas shopping season: lying in a shipping tube with a hockey mask strapped over your head and a hose up your arm like some demented Christmas present on a noisy Postal Service airplane. Will anyone be happy to open this present? Will I ever be able to ship a stuffed animal or a doll in a box again without wondering whether it finds the ordeal a living hell? Now I know what it feels like to be stuffed in a drum in a marching band.

It would have helped if they'd given me any information on how many tests they were going to run or how long I'd be jammed in the shipping tube while the Green Bay Packers ran back and forth over the machine. Do the techs sit around at break-time laughing at how they stuff ear plugs and noise reducing packs around people's heads and then whisper intermittent instructions to them, apparently asking on occasion, "can you hear me"? If a patient answers, "yes", do they whisper softer for a prank?

The visceral reaction of fleeing that overtook me when they plopped the hockey mask down over my face and slid me into the hole took me completely by surprise. Sure, I sometimes freak out in large, boisterous, pushy crowds and react like a snarling lion when loud noises won't stop. But I didn't realize just how bad this experience would be.

They started running the tests, and at first they told me how long a particular test would last. After the first three fairly short ones, however, they started running them all together, one after the other with no notice. I lay there for what seemed like forever with a fan blowing air in my face in a ring of cacophony wondering when it would end, if swallowing caused too much motion and disturbed the images, if I could move my arm because my elbow was falling asleep.

I began by reciting in my head a bedtime story that I read to my daughter about a little bear that won't go to sleep in the cave because he needs a snack, then a drink of water, then the moon, so that he can sleep. This was a mistake. I got horribly claustrophobic thinking about being stuck in a cave in the cold and dark for the rest of winter. I tried the Lord's Prayer. I tried singing in my head every Beatles' song and every Christmas song I could think of. Those things all worked for a time. I tried singing carols backwards. This didn't work at all. I counted to 100 over and over and over. I made up songs to the percussion of the machine and decided that someone should make an MRI soundtrack, adding in a few string instruments and woodwinds. Each test had a different tone and rhythm. On some there was an intriguing echo. This entertained me for some time. But not enough.

Perhaps you will understand the extent of the problem when I add that I had a horrible cough last night that lingered till today. One of the techs gave me a lozenge that got me most of the way through the tests. But on the last test, one that lasts 4 1/2 minutes, a tickle rose in my throat. I tried swallowing, repeatedly. I tried shallow breathing so as not to aggravate it with air. I tried thinking of something else. I tried willing it to stop. I tried just holding on, wondering how much longer, could I make it if I just held still? NO! A cough erupted, wracking my body. Fluid and goo cascaded down my throat. Water leaked from my eyes. I asked the techs to pull me out of the machine because I was choking.

Silence.

The test kept going. I screamed to let me out because I was gagging.

From a muffled microphone in another room someone said calmly, "Are you okay?"

"No! Get me out of here! I'm choking."

Nothing.

In desperation I began to kick my legs hard, screaming at the top of my lungs for them to get me out of the machine. Finally, FINALLY, they came and slid me out of the machine... but left the mask on. I told them to take it off. I needed to sit up. There was a pause. Then, they complied.

One of the two I shall refer to as The Miss Know-it-all Tech. She wasn't much of a listener. She knew everything about everything and everyone. Taking the mask off didn't seem to sit well with her. I realize it slowed things down and took a little extra care on their part, but I was choking and freaking out. She seemed to want me to be having an allergic reaction to the contrast. There may have been a gleam in her eye. She seemed quite focused on the contrast. Amazingly, if she'd paid attention to anything from the beginning, she'd have known I had a cold with a cough.

I asked the other tech, the one who seemed to understand the concept of conversation, listening, responding, to please get me some water. She did. The Know-it-all made me take the lozenge out, saying that was the problem. I said, "no, I have a cough. That's the problem." I asked if I had to do it again. At this point the tickle was pretty constant. They told me I had to take the test again, that it was a very important test. I got myself calmed down, the throat under as much control as possible, and went back in. I asked them to tell me how much longer the test would take every now and then so that I would be encouraged to hold on to it if the tickle started back in earnest. They told me nothing, or maybe they whispered it. There was some serious sound proofing on my ears. This time I made it through the test till 3 seconds to the end. If only they'd told me how much longer when I wiggled my foot at them as a sign of distress. They rolled me out for the coughing fit, left me caged in the mask, and gave me water through a straw. Then, they slid me back in to retake the last 16 seconds of the test, and said they got a full image putting the first and second runs of the test together, so we wouldn't have to go through it again.

Miss Know-it-all said to get dressed and go. I went back to the dressing room, dazed, and discovered they'd left the catheter in my arm. Miss Know-it-All assured me it was my fault for having such a distracting coughing fit.

I pray, sincerely and with intensity, that I never have to go through that again.

Next week I hope to get the results. We'll see.