#102. or, FYI, MRI

  A couple months back my doctor scheduled me to get an MRI to see if they could figure out what's wrong with my wonky shoulder. Part of the process of being cleared to actually get the MRI was that I needed to get an X-ray of my eyeball.  The MRI uses a strong magnetic field and in the past I had some metal fragments in my eye from a careless grinding incident. They wanted to be sure that no metal was left in my eye because if there was, the possibility was there that the MRI machine could suck that metal right out of my eyeball. I posted on that before, you can read about it here.

  Friday was finally the day for my MRI appointment. I had never had an MRI before. There's a shit-ton of questions to be answered to make sure that there is absolutely no metal on you before they proceed. No piercings, pins in your bones, electronic devices that keep you alive, or any recent tattoos. I was clean, but still am not quite sure why you can't have recent tattoos. I should have asked that?

  This particular MRI unit is a mobile one. It travels between the local communities to make it more accessible. They pull up beside the hospital and you go through a tunnel like you would when you board an airplane. It's actually in a trailer like they move produce in that they pull with a big truck. But inside, there's millions of dollars of equipment. It's pretty pimped out, I'm sure that in the back, behind the MRI machine, they keep the Knight Rider car. 


 The whole procedure was going to take about 15 minutes, I needed to be still for that time. The technician put me on the table, positioned my shoulder in the cup, gave me the button to push if anything was wrong, put headphones on me, (she said it was going to make a lot of noise.) and pushed the button for the table to slide into the MRI tunnel.


  The next thing I noticed was my ring finger was twitching. HOLY SHIT! I forgot to take my wedding ring off! How long ago did we buy these things? This tunnel is way too small to turn around in and crawl back out! When this machine sucks my ring into it, it's going to rip my finger clean off. My knee is itchy. Isn't gold non-metallic? I wonder how much iron I have in my blood? Is magnetic metal, ferrous or non-ferrous? Did we get ripped off when we bought these rings 18 years ago? With my finger ripped off, am I going to be able to push the abort button to stop this thing? It's awfully white in here. There has to be something else metallic on my body that I've forgotten about? Itchy. I wonder if I have a steel plate in my head? Non-ferrous, I think. This is a new t-shirt, if my finger comes off, it's going to be ruined. I'd probably know it if I had a steel plate in my head. If my head comes off in this thing are they going to make my wife clean it up? This machine is noisy as hell! Wonder if I should push the button and bail? Has anybody died in one of these things? Hey, those are exactly the same sounds Alien Invaders made on my old Atari 2600. I'm pretty sure I can still function with 3 fingers and a thumb on my left hand. Where is that Atari 2600?  Do tattoos explode? My wife is going to get sick if they make her clean up the mess, they should make someone else do that. Wonder what's happening on Twitter? OH, THAT WAS LOUD! My knee is itchy, should have picked a better position. Finger is still twitching. Itchy, itchy,itchy, itchy. I have to pee. I should stop this thing. If you lose a finger, the ring finger isn't such a bad one to lose. I should let this thing finish. Must be close to 15 minutes by now. What if they forget I'm in here and drive to the next town. If I have to walk 40 miles back to my truck, I should have worn something other than flip flops. Finger is still twitching. Why have I never broken a bone? Maybe, when I was a kid, I could have been abducted, taken to a secret government research facility where they fused my bones with an indestructible metal alloy. Then, wiped my memory of anything like that ever happening and reintroduced me into society to be called on at a later date to save the world? That would be so cool. If I have metal bones, I'm probably going to explode in here. Is it 15 minutes yet? Itchy and I have to pee. If I'm going to be a super hero, I'm going to have to lose some weight. Itchy, itchy knee.....  


  And that's what went on in my head. For another 14 minutes, 58 seconds.

 But nothing happened. I just layed there, still, for my 15 minutes, while they bombarded my body with magnetism to take pictures of my insides. Aside from my twitching ring finger, it was relatively uneventful. Until, that is, I tried to get my valuables back out of the locker they had me put them into and the code I thought I used wouldn’t work. I had to get some hospital staff to come and put in a master code to get the locker open. All the while my phone is in there vibrating like crazy on the metal floor of the locker and I’m worried about what I’m missing on Twitter while they think who’s this idiot that can’t remember a 4 digit code for 20 minutes.

  I have an appointment next month to go over the results with my doctor. He’s most likely going to tell me I’m just getting old.

 .........the only hurdle that I have left to cross is to see if I’m going to turn into a giant green hulking monster the next time I get angry. I’m a little excited to see what happens.