The big bad machine...

I’m a failure, a quitter, a ‘fraidy cat, an hysterical wreck, a total coward. That’s right, I’m a coward. I never thought so before. I always thought I was reasonably brave and I’ve even been told so before by people I respect. But no more…

You see, tonight I had an MRI…well part of an MRI…the first five minute part. And then I bailed out. Oh the shame, the humiliation, the shakes and the weakness. I am currently filled with self-loathing. I had no idea I was such a weenie. When they asked me if I was claustrophobic I said nope, I didn’t think so, not really. WRONG!! I am so claustrophobic that even now, an hour and half later, I’m still trembling inside, have a headache and feel faint. I don’t feel very good. What a wuss…

The awful silly thing is, I wasn’t even all the way in. I was having my knee MRI’d because pain is making it hard to walk and it is particularly excrutiating when trying to negotiate steps, especially going down.

I have arthritis anyway and a little over a year ago I fell over The Old Guy in the middle of the night when he was in invisible mode in the middle of the hallway. I had gotten up to use the bathroom and BOOM! I bumped into the invisible dog and then tried to step over him which caused him to panic and rear up and then I was airborne and finally landed (kerboom!) on my left knee which immediately started throbbing and swelling without even waiting for me to take a proper breath. It took a very long time to heal and lately it has started getting worse again.

The Rock took me to the doctor’s last week and the doc set me up for the MRI appointment to find out “what was what.” MRI. Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine they call it. Monstrous Rotten Intimidation machine I call it. It’s big and loud and the core part, the part you’re slid into is little and cramped and loud. The platform you lay on is narrow and there’s no place for your arms to go so you have to put them up on your chest or up over your head, neither place being suitable for the amount of time you have to spend there, unless you don’t mind having parts of you go numb or tingle with the urge to move.

The urge to move… I figured that was the part that was going to get me. I can’t sit or lay still for very long before I get that urge to move, to wiggle, to scratch, etc. Tell me to lie still and not move and you’re asking for the impossible. I also have trouble with the tonometer or the other thingy they use to puff air against your eyeball to check the pressure within said eyeball. The test is used by the opthamologist or optician to check for glaucoma. They always tell you not to blink for a minute. Not blink! What?! That’s all I need to hear to set that ole eye up for twitching and blinking double-time. I hate that test! And you know what? I now know that I HATE having MRIs.

What makes this especially hard to take, is that Older Sonny has endured not one, but two (2) MRIs on his brain recently, topped off by an EEG (electroencephalogram) and grueling hours of survey questions . And he did it voluntarily, as part of a research study being done at McLean’s Hospital in Massachusetts to study differences in brains of people with schizophrenia opposed to people without schizophrenia. They’ve been doing this research for 10 years. I wonder how many people they actually get to go through with it. I’m in awe of him. He never balked nor complained. And he was all the way in the damned thing!

I was only partially in it, up to my chest. My head was out. Honest to goodness, I never for a second figured it would be like that. I kept thinking of Older Sonny going in that tiny tube twice, all the way, and doing it like a trooper. If he could do that I figured, how hard would it be for me to go part-way? It turned out to be hard. It turned out to be impossible! It turned out that I am not the woman I thought I was. I had the mother of all panic attacks! I thought for sure I was having a heart attack. I thought that I would rather just go quietly along with my painful knee and not look back.

Tomorrow I’m to call my doc again and after he finishes laughing hysterically and making rude remarks (we’re friends you see…), I’m to suggest that he send me up to the big hospital in Concord which has what they call an ‘open’ MRI machine. They tell me it’s bigger, more open and probably easier to take. They gave me a brochure about it. They told me not to feel bad. Lots of people have this trouble. Lots of people have to take sedatives before undergoing an MRI. I’m not lots of people!

Psychologically right now, I’m a mess. My adrenalin rush has dissapated itself, the nausea has passed and I’m left with the dregs of my tarnished ego. I have decided that it would just be easier to get a pair of crutches and learn to use them skillfully than to face that damn thing again. Please, be merciful in your thoughts regarding me. I’m mortified enough! Siiigh….