MS/MRS

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tick tick tick tick tick. Tap. Tap. Tap. The rhythm began again as I lay under the white sheet with my eyes closed inside the giant magnet of the MRI machine. I assured the technician I, Melanie Wilson, was not claustrophobic, but that was before I lay down on the narrow board that slid me into the machine like a human pizza being sent to a fiery furnace. It didn’t help that there was a cage over my head and neck to hold me completely still in the machine’s embrace like some medieval torture device. The cage held a tiny mirror, angled so I could see the outside world, but I preferred to lay eyes closed so I could imagine myself away from here. My yogic breathing is probably the only thing that saved me. I focused internally as hard as I could, deep breath in through the nose, modified with deep breath out through the nose because I had to avoid moving my body. If my images were blurry they would have to start all over. I was determined to be the best patient ever. After what felt like the day must have turned to night, I felt my body move forward. I stared up at the ceiling, where a poster of a tropical Hawaiian beach cheerily attempted to distract me.
“You’re doing great,” the tech said as she smiled down at me once I reached the outside.
Her blond ponytail waved back and forth as she turned toward me to gently remove my cage and then away to ready the giant syringe she was about to inject into my arm.
“So what is that exactly?”
I asked mostly to buy my body more time to relax. I knew I was only half finished with this ordeal and I needed to imprint the memory of how it felt to be here. As much as I pushed away how not-normal this entire ordeal felt on an emotional level, my inner self, the one that kept insisting I really must start getting to know Her, knew differently. This would not be my first or my only experience with the machine.
“Gadolinium. It’s a dye that will show up as a contrast if there is any injury in your brain or spinal cord. The doctor will compare your first set of images to the next set with the dye.”
Swiftly, the tech wrapped rubber tubing around my upper arm and swiped the crook of my elbow with alcohol.
“You have great veins.”
The glee in her voice was unmistakable. I wasn’t poked often, but when I was, it was always the same. My veins were happy to oblige with the constriction and hop right to attention. Even with compliant veins, I couldn’t watch. I carried too much trauma from standing next to my younger sister’s wheelchair as a child while the nurses endlessly poked her rolling veins trying to snatch one just long enough to take the samples they needed. Tiffany was the disabled one, not me. I was the normal one. Until now.
“I thought gadolinium was radioactive.”
I steeled myself against the pinch and burn as the tech slid the needle into my arm. The burn continued long after my exhale expired.
“It is. You’re not pregnant or nursing are you?”
“No, you asked me that before, but now it makes more sense. How long does it last in my system after this?” If I spoke normally and calmly about everything, maybe I could prevent the high-pitched wail hovering in my chest cavity from escaping.
“It should be all out by tomorrow. Drink lots of water.”
After the tech replaced the cage over my head and slid me back into the machine again, I mentally felt around searching for the presence of the dye. My insides now glowed but I didn’t feel different.
No one told me how loud it was inside the machine. I named it Hank. I’d immediately assigned a personality to the giant hulk that took up most of the tiny room in which it lurked. I concentrated again on the symphony of sound in the pattern of the ticks and tocks and whirs. And then, it was over. The reality of my ordeal was less than an hour, but I felt like I’d been intimate with Hank for days. I would even walk away with bruises on my arm. A huge purple bruise already covered the inside of my arm where the tech injected me with the dye.
“So, do I have MS?”
I handed the sheet to the tech, grateful for it after all. It was cold and breezy inside Hank. As he worked his magic, Hank stole all the cool air, blew it across my body, and spewed it hotly back out into the room.
“Your doctor will call you after he reviews the results.” The tech smiled cheerily, but her eyes slid away as I tried to pin her to an answer I knew she couldn’t give.
I walked normally out into the watery winter sunshine. The numbness that tightened around my midsection and made it feel like my ankles ended in nothingness when I ran every morning was long gone. Long gone but not forgotten.