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i don't like discos

In case you were wondering, getting an MRI is bizarre.

"What was it like?" C asks on the way back to the car.
"Like a Hannibal Lecter airplane disco tube," you tell him.

To be more specific, they make you strip down to nothing and then don an oversized hospital gown and matching pants, also oversized to the point that you needed to cuff the hems and the waist sags, despite the drawstring pulled tightly.

Then, into the "MRI Zone," which sounds like it should be a fun California Adventure ride but, alas, is more of an exercise in extreme self restraint.

Earplugs in, you lay on the narrow bed and nestle your head into a little recessed cove. From there the radiologist presses pads against each ear and then lowers a white mask over your face. It has a cutout for your eyes but, really what's the point? Guided into the tube headfirst, you'll see nothing but whiteness and a glimmer of light in the horizon between the mask and your nose.

"It will be noisy," she says, then warns you to remain as still as possible.

"Noisy" doesn't really begin to describe it. It's loud and clamorous and everything vibrates and it feels like you're in a bright white disco (even if you close your eyes) that's playing the most dissonant of EDM tracks as you rattle and shake. Only there are no other humans to dance up against just the staticky tsk bshtk tsk phffttt of the radiologist talking through a hand-held walkie talkie that makes you feel as though you are sitting through a pre-flight safety demonstration but really she's just telling you, again, to be still.

At one point she pops over to examine you.
"Are you wearing false eyelashes?" she asks, her voice accusatory.
"No," you reply, confused, and she's off again to restart the machine, and it continues in sonorous, shaky fits that last three minutes here, four minutes there, forever here.

Finally, a break so that they may inject you full of dye for another round. You take a moment to scratch an itch on your chest and the radiologist eyes you suspiciously.

"What's the matter?"
"It's just an itch."
"Let me see," she says, cheerfully annoyed, as she grabs at the neck of your gown to get a better look.

"Just an itch," you repeat, chagrined, and then spend the next 15 minutes trying to distract yourself from all the places you suddenly need to scratch. This sends you, weirdly, down a memory rabbit hole of the seventh grade, using all your distracting concentration methods to remember long-ago friends' names, teachers' oddities, class lessons and the special hell that is the middle school social hierarchy.

It works, mostly. She doesn't chide you again and then suddenly you're done and she's asking questions about why you're here (isn't that something you should ask at the start), your history of cancer, your symptoms, etc.

And then it's done and your head throbs and you'll need to drink lots of liquid to flush out the dye and you just want to go home and sleep. The doctor will have the results in a day or two but you'll still have to wait a week.

2:56 pm - 06.06.18

sounds:
words:
i am:

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previously on ... - next time on ...

Jesus, subconscious, WTF - 27.06.18 - 12:13 am

this is fortysomething - 21.06.18 - 2:56 pm

at the sound of a voice - 18.06.18 - 5:00 pm

mostly just relief - 13.06.18 - 3:54 pm

to smooth down the rat's nest - 09.06.18 - 4:47 pm