I took yesterday off to have an MRI – no need to worry: it’s routine. Five years after the big breast cancer diagnosis, I have one every year, just to make sure the cooties haven’t come back. No results yet, but there’s no reason to be concerned. Anyway, if you haven’t had one, an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imagery) is slightly less fun than root canal, but more entertaining than being thrown down a well. First of all, you take off all your clothes and make sure you have nothing metallic on or IN your body (seriously – they ask about bullets and shrapnel and such). Then you lie face down on a skinny table with a hole cut out for your boobs, and another for your face. You’re given a panic button to press if you panic, and, if you’re lucky, a set of ear plugs or headphones, because an MRI is as noisy as a Soviet submarine, and just as cosy. Oh, and you’re also hooked up to an IV that injects dye into your bloodstream. The technician slides you into a massive cylindrical machine, tells you not to move even the slightest bit, then runs out of the room, possibly giggling. The whole thing takes about half an hour. While you’re in there, these are the things that go through your head:
- Will the technician tell me if she sees anything suspicious?
- How can I be absolutely sure there’s no metal in my body? What if I accidentally swallowed some tin foil? Will it get sucked out of my stomach by magnetic force?
- What if this isn’t an MRI, but a time machine, and I end up in 2694? Or worse, 1982?
- My nose is running.
- What if … I’m not alone in here?
- That’s a different banging and humming than the other banging and humming.
- That must be the dye tingling up my left arm. Either that, or I’m having a heart attack.
- I wonder if this panic button really works.
- Has the technologist gone to lunch?
- I wish this were an Avatar machine. I could be ten feet tall and blue and riding a banshee.
- Should this thing be actually shaking?
- I am definitely not alone in here.
- I think I may have taken a bullet once and forgotten about it. I should tell the technician. Where’s that panic button? It was here somewhere –
And then it’s over, and you go home, and for a few days you’re magnetized and the kids can stick paper clips and fridge magnets on you.
I’m kidding.