My MRI Yesterday…2001: A Space Odyssey

     “My God…it’s full of stars!”

Those are the famous last words of astronaut Dave Bowman as he enters the monolith in the book version of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The ethereal recording opens the movie sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact as Mission Information scrolls across the screen.

I arrived at Riverside Hospital at 6:20 yesterday morning for an MRI my doctor had prescribed for me. I’ve had an ongoing infection from a bad tooth that we just can seem to pinpoint where the lingering problem is occurring.

A wonderfully warm lady named Enessa helped me get prepared for the MRI. Enessa could have been my friend, Judy Day’s long lost twin sister. During our conversation Enessa gave me three guesses to try and determine her country of origin based upon the strong accent she had.

I first guessed Romania; she said it was a good guess and that she would never have guessed I would have guessed that. My second guess was The Czech Republic; she grew a bit sullen with that guess, but responded playfully “think bigger, much bigger,” to which I replied Russia.

I don’t know what Enessa did before she came to the U.S. twenty years ago, but Russia’s loss is our gain.

I didn’t realize that the MRI would be a Contrast MRI where they would shoot dye into me in the middle of the procedure, which required an IV, which required a needle, which…I hate needles.

I’ve had MRIs in the past and even Contrast MRIs, but my appointment was so early that I didn’t take time to eat. Eating is important for me before a procedure like this, because I’m a bit of a sissy when it comes to needles, and it seems like when I have an IV put in on an empty stomach, I can get a little queasy, and have even been known to pass out, which kind of throws everybody into a panic.

Nevertheless, Enessa’s precision with putting and IV in was remarkable; maybe she circumcised gnats in Russia before coming to America, I don’t know. Apart from the slight pin prick I felt nothing as she inserted the IV. Glory Hallelujah!

I could hear the sound of somebody else receiving an MRI in the distance as I was being prepped; it sounded X-rated.

Once I’d donned my hospital-issued gown, robe and nifty brown socks with skid-proof soles I was off to have my own MRI.

I knew the procedure: lie down on a table, hold still, follow instructions and don’t move your jaw. Enessa gave me a signaling device that I could use during the procedure if I needed them to stop. It was kind of like one of those rubber bulb syringes that mothers use to suck boogers out of newborn’s noses, except the squeezing stopped the procedure instead of clearing encrusted snot.

I lay on the table as it moved me into the MRI machine, sort of like a 7-year-old sliding a pan of cake mix into an Easy Bake Oven.

“My God…it’s full of stars!” replayed over in my mind as I was fitted with a mask that affixed my head to the table; it reminded me of David Bowman’s full-face mask on 2001, especially with the near-florescent lighting of the MRI machine.

I thought I heard chimpanzees pounding the earth somewhere with dead monkey bones.

Enessa then placed two over-sized pads that felt like stale marshmallows on either side of my temples to ensure I wouldn’t move my head; she gave me a couple of ear plugs so my cerebellum wouldn’t implode during all the pounding that goes on during an MRI.

As the procedure began I listened through muffled ears and tried to think of what the sound of each phase of the procedure reminded me of.

The first phase was rather generic; just the sound of a jack hammer pounding concrete while you have your ear next to the ground. Sounds like this don’t bother me much; I guess it’s because I grew up living thirty feet from a railroad track and train engines made this sound a bit anemic.

The next phase was also a tad generic; it sounded like a mechanic using an air-powered impact wrench to take off the lug nuts from car’s wheel. It was probably the sound the tire heard while the mechanic allowed the wrench to scream while nearly stripping the lug nuts in order to get them off.

Not bad, I thought to myself. Monstrous sounds like these really don’t bother me, but let the refrigerator at home have a one-level octave shift in the sound of the motor and that drives me nuts.

I will say that the next phase was a little more interesting; I reminded me of the Tazmanian Devil playing, and holding, a low note on a cello while the sound was piped through the speakers at a Metallica concert, and I was standing three feet from the speaker stack.

I’m not sure how I made that connection, but my brain was doing a smidgen of ciphering to make the connection.

“My God…it’s full of stars!” I thought again as my nose began to itch and there was nothing I could do about it. I was enjoying my near-nap experience and opened my eyes for a minute just to make sure there wasn’t a black monolith standing next to me.

The MRI machine kicked into its next phase which reminded me of getting a haircut; it was that sensation you get when the barber places the electric clippers right behind your ear, allows it to rest on your scalp as the vibration makes you want to pee. But it was more than a haircut sensation; it was a haircut while being stuck inside a washing machine when it gets out of balance during the spin cycle.

My brain was doing gymnastics while trying to connect the MRI sounds to sounds I’d experienced in the past.

By now my feet had become citizens of Frostbite Falls, even with my socks and the hospital issued brown, skid-proof socks over them my toes felt like they were dangling in a meat locker. My stomach began to tell me it was lonely and would like some company in the form of breakfast.

No sooner had the itching stopped on my nose, it began on my chin.

The MRI machine went silent for a few moments and an altogether new phase began with the first sound reminiscent of a woodpecker playing Space Invaders with its beak. The rapid pulses were a rather ticklish thought.

The technologist running the test came into the room, slid me out of the MRI machine, shot a bit of saline into my IV, and then shot the Contrast dye into the IV. Back I went into the Easy Bake Oven again.

The next phase reminded me of a trip I took in the late 70s to Mexico to help build an orphanage. The Yucatan Peninsula had some rather larger insects, in addition to scorpions and other critters. We didn’t have any housing while constructing the orphanage so we slept in the open which subjected us to attacks by mosquitoes, stink bugs and dive-bombing flying cockroaches about three inches long.

I recalled us putting a bug zapper in the middle of our make-shift campsite and we’d listen to bugs frying all night long. It was particularly scintillating when one of these 3-inch fellas hit the zapper; it sounded like steak sizzling on a grill for hours.

This new phase was the sound of that bug zapper sizzling, while at the same time being hit on the head repeatedly with a wooden mallet; not just any wooden mallet, but a wooden mallet the size of a sledgehammer like they use in the County Fair on those games to see if you can pound the hammer hard enough to make the bell ring fifteen feet in the air.

Another break in the pounding occurred as the MRI machine fell silent for a few moments, only to be resurrected with the last sound I remembered; it was a sound that reminded me of getting a busy signal on the telephone…while standing in the engine room of the Titanic.

I kept repeating to myself each phase’s sound thinking that I’d like to write about this experience. But somewhere, my brain lost track of a few other phases, I guess that’s what a constant pounding does to you.

Enessa was gone so the technologist who conducted the procedure turned the MRI machine off, pressed a button and I slid out like a casket coming out of a hearse.

The technologist asked me to sit up, then took the IV out of my arm, which sort of felt like she was pulling a Lincoln Log out of my vein…where was Enessa?

“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”