This is my story about my experience with the MRI. I have more resources available at the bottom of this page
The bus was hot. Despite the air conditioning’s valiant effort to stave off the sweltering surges of hot wind and dry desert dust, heat leaked through the cracks in the windowsills like miniature furnace blowers, reducing the comfort of the cooled air to barely-tolerable.
As was my usual routine when riding the Utah Transit Authority bus, I was leaning my head on my trusty Bone Pillow. The Bone Pillow is so-named because it’s shaped roughly like a femur. Narrow in the center, it is broad at both ends, and three-sided so that it is easier to wedge into tough cracks. Mine is blue, with a slight paisley pattern long since faded into obscurity by the leaning of head, sweat, and skin oils soaking into it so deeply that no amount of laundering extracts the shade. Yet it’s my pillow to use on the bus, and I like it.
At this point, though, it was growing uncomfortable as it soaked up perspiration from my soggy forehead, so I gave up the fight for sleep and resolved myself to either staring out the window or reading more from my newly-purchased manual, “Intrusion Detection Using Snort”. I tucked the bone pillow into my backpack and pulled out the volume, flipping about halfway through the technical manual to where I had left off reading.
There it was again!
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened only my right eye. Yes, it was definitely there again. Like the vertical bands of a television test pattern, I saw bands of blurriness and clarity fighting for supremacy, the fuzzy bands giving way to clarity, slowly, between each eyeblink. Whenever I blinked, the page became fuzzy again for a few moments. “This is so strange,” I thought.
It had been strange that morning when I’d experienced the same thing. So strange, in fact, that I was finally moved to call my doctor and schedule an appointment. I’d left the bank where I work early, catching bus number 53 at 1:18 PM from the 53 South State Street bus stop in Salt Lake City, Utah. My doctor’s appointment was scheduled for 2:45 PM, and I guessed I’d probably be seeing “Dr. Darren” Smith, Dr. Holt’s Physician Assistant. Apparently, being a P.A. requires you to be just as much a doctor as a regular physician, but the position is junior in some fashion. I really don’t care; Dr. Darren knows my family really well, is familiar with our individual histories, and has a remarkably friendly, disarming bedside manner. I heartily recommend him as your family physician if you live in Tooele.
I gave up attempting to read the page before me. Although I could close my right eye and read, it was such an uncomfortable arrangement that it threatened to create a new headache all its own. I shoved the weighty volume back into the backpack and zipped the bag shut.
Gazing out the window, it felt very strange to be passing the usual stop where I normally disembark, to travel several blocks further to see the doctor. I never seem to notice how much a creature of habit I am until that routine is disrupted and I’m forced to examine what I’m doing. It’s almost scary to realize that, even when I’m in the midst of creative efforts like systems administration or programming, that ultimately I live a significant percentage of my life on autopilot, without true conscious thought on what I’m are doing.
Here was my stop, in front of the Hollywood Video at Utah Avenue. I headed uphill, southbound, for half a block to reach the crosswalk, then back one block north on my bike, downhill, to the doctor’s office. I my cell phone out of my pocket and glanced at its dim, color display, which defaults to a display of the time when there is no activity. 2:32. I’m 13 minutes early. Wow, that’s different for once.
The blast of air conditioners greeted me as I proceeded through the swinging glass doors to the reception desk. “My wife has left a package for me,” I informed the receptionist, who pulled out a fat white envelope which contained details on Lyme disease testing facilities. This is what Christy, my darling and devoted sweetheart, thought might be wrong, that I was bitten by a tick as a child, and had latent Lyme Disease. I considered it unlikely, but given the strange things that had been happening lately, I didn’t want to discount any particular avenue of research. Really, my main reason for suspecting it was not Lyme Disease was principally due to the hype around it. I have three neighbors who have been treated for it, and that I should be a fourth seemed phenomenally unlikely. No sooner had I tucked the envelope into my pack, than a well-padded, husky-voiced nurse opened the door to the back area. “Matthew?” she inquired, as I smiled, grabbed my pack, and headed through the door.
Weighing time. Ack, well, here was a moment of truth. For the last six months, I’ve fallen off my diet and exercise routine, and have packed back on 12 pounds, according to my home scale. Despite my removal of keys, Palm Pilot, shoes, wallet, cellular phone, and various other items in my pockets, the doctor’s scale appeared to be conspiring with my home scale and confirmed. “Two-hundred thirty-eight pounds,” I read aloud and sighed. That’s still obese even at my six foot one height, which these days seems to be drifting far closer to six foot zero.
Finding the room. I threw my assorted geek gadgets and shoes in my backpack and followed the assistant to a private room, where I underwent the usual routine of questions.
“Why are we seeing you today, Matthew?” the nurse inquired diligently, her blue eyes focussed on mine.
I avoided her glance. “Well, really, it’s a combination of small things that, by themselves, don’t worry me much, but that together are really disconcerting,” I began. “In the last three weeks, I’ve had difficulties four times with getting up out of bed in the morning.” Seeing the nurse’s hint of a knowing smile, and realizing that she probably has difficulty waking up each day to, I hastened to add, “I will try to walk and simply collapse. My right leg won’t support my weight. The first time it only lasted a few seconds, but it’s happened four times, and this morning it was far worse. I couldn’t get up for over a minute.”
“So you’re suffering weakness in the legs, then?” she asked.
“Not exactly. I mean, my right leg feels perfectly strong, but it’s as if it just won’t respond, do you know what I mean? Anyway, I didn’t think this was such a big deal, but the other night I was playing the piano as I often do, and my right hand was unable to finger as accurately or speedily as I am accustomed to. It feels kind of weak, too, like I can’t strike the keys well.”
“Anything else?” she replied.
“Well, just this scaly patch of skin on my back that I’ve had since I was about 13 or 14. It started out about the size of a quarter, but according to my wife it’s much larger now, and she wants me to have it looked at,” I responded.
“May I see it?” the nurse requested.
“Sure!” I responded, probably too enthusiastically, as this little thing was the least of my worries. It’s not really a mole, just a slightly darker patch of skin that has a slightly scaly, bumpy feel to it. It covers almost all of my right shoulderblade now.
The nurse quickly examined it, commented on the fact that it seemed to be hairier than the rest of my back, and went to get Dr. Darren. I redressed and sat down with a Time magazine review of X-Men 2. I still haven’t seen that movie, though I’ve meant to. I’ll probably have to just buy it when it comes out on DVD.
The moment Darren walked into the room, I could tell he was on edge. His eyes were wide and looked slightly startled. “Matt, nice to see you again!” he began, “How are you doing?”
I smiled to myself, thinking “If I were just fine, why would I be in a doctor’s office?” Instead, I offered up, “Well, I’m doing all right, but I have a few concerns I’m sure the nurse told you about.”
“Yes,” he quickly responded. “I understand you’re feeling weakness in your right leg and hand?”
I described the feeling of kneeling on my left knee, unable to come to a standing position without collapsing, and my concerns that I was not fingering the piano keyboard as accurately or strongly. “Have you experienced any blurriness of vision?” Darren asked.
This jolted me, as I realized I had not told the nurse about that particular symptom. “As a matter of fact, yes I have.” I described the test-pattern effect I was experiencing.
We briefly discussed the patch on my back as well, and he mentioned he’d prescribe a cream that might take care of it. Obviously, however, his mind was not on that. “Matthew, I’ll be right back,” he told me as he stepped quickly from the room.
He rejoined me within two minutes. “I’ve scheduled an MRI for you down at the Tooele hospital,” he stated. “It’s at 3:30. Have you ever had an MRI before?”
I think I must have looked pretty nervous. “No, but I’m a bit familiar with what they do. I’ve read about it.”
“Would you like a Valium?” Dr. Darren asked.
I declined. “No, really, I think I can just close my eyes and go to my happy place,” I said with a grin.
He wasn’t fooled. “Matt, are you claustrophobic?”
“Slightly, yes. I mean, probably no more so than other people, but I don’t like the thought of being enclosed in tight spaces.”
“You should really take a Valium. I’ll give it to you here, and if you don’t dilly-dally at Albertson’s next door or something, you should be fine riding your bike down to the hospital. You’ll probably need a ride home, though.”
So shortly thereafter, a skinny nurse with an earnest, timid expression as if she were constantly expecting reprimand, faltered in and offered me a Valium with a cup of water. I’ve never had one of these before, since I steadfastly avoid medication whenever possible. However, I accepted this little pink pill with a “V” hole in the center, chugged down the water, thanked the nurse, checked out of the office and paid my copay, then went on my way. The cool thing is, the hospital is all downhill. I made the two-mile trip in about eight minutes on my bicycle.
The next was just the usual routine of hospital outpatient check-in. I filled out a bunch of forms saying that if they accidentally kill me, that’s too bad and I can’t sue them, the privacy acknowledgement, some other form with a whole bunch of questions about possible ways I might possibly have chunks of metal embedded in my skin, brain, or other sensitive areas, and got my little yellow armband to affix on my right wrist detailing my important info. The check-in lady looked concerned with my state of mind, asking me repeatedly if I was all right. I guess it was the Valium kicking in, so I informed her that my doctor had given me a Valium to keep me calm through the procedure, and she looked mollified.
I was escorted to the MRI area, where I met the doctor who supervised the procedure, and the nice Hispanic technician who would be taking care of me. “What was the Valium for?” was the only question the doctor asked, and I replied as best I could, though I was feeling quite groggy by this time. The MRI tech and I walked outdoors to a large, humming 18-wheeler trailer and went up some steps, where I removed any potentially magnetic items from my body and finally got my first up-close-and-personal perspective on an MRI machine.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging. This bulky beast looks like a little, tiny horizontal cave surrounded by several thick feet of white, polished plastic in all directions. Imagine a doughnut on its side, but eight feet thick in every direction. Imposing. And, apparently, noisy. The tech handed me a bright pink earplug; I rolled one and put it into my right ear, while he inserted the other into my left. I laid down on the little bed with my head facing the inside of the doughnut, and the tech propped my legs up on a small triangle-like foam pad. The tech pulled down a kind of face-guard with a tiny mirror built into it, and showed me that the mirror reflected my feet and the room beyond, to help combat claustrophobia. For some reason, this face guard reminded me forcibly of the muzzle and faceguard worn by Hannibal Lechter in “The Silence Of The Lambs”. The tech handed me a black plastic bulb I could squeeze to be removed immediately from the MRI machin, instructed me not to move my head during the procedure, and reminded me that this would be rather noisy, then closed the door behind him.
The table moved. I closed my eyes. I didn’t think I would be this nervous. I mean, it was just a big plastic tube they were shoving my body into. I felt my arms gently pushed into my sides by the concave walls, and realized with some small panic that I couldn’t raise my hands more than a few inches to scratch my nose if I needed to. I breathed deeply in and out, opening my eyes, and saw two parallel, identical light-strips a few inches in front of each eye. I couldn’t sit up, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t really move if I needed to. My breathing sped up.
I was glad for the Valium. I’m pretty certain I would have been terrified if not for the artificial calm induced by the drug.
I won’t go into the noises, except to say that at two points, the MRI machine vibrates for about three minutes straight at 100 beats per minute on a “D” note. I began humming and whistling along to pass the time. After the first few minutes in the tube, I went from claustrophobia to sheer boredom. It takes about a half hour for a full MRI scan, and I’m a person who thrives on entertainment. I found myself wishing they had a television screen built into the ceiling of that little tube. And the bumping, grinding, swooshing-round-the-head noises from an MRI machine could make you easily imagine you were a soldier in Starship Troopers (the book, not the awful movie), riding a drop-pod through atmospheric re-entry. I was grateful for that little mirror, periodically looking into it to realize that it was only the upper half of my body inside the machine, and that I was not trapped in some noisy cocoon.
Then, an agonizingly slow twenty minutes or so later, the noises stopped. The table rolled out slowly from inside the tube, and the technician efficiently pulled back the Hannibal Lechter face-cage, removed my earplugs, and bid me on my way.
I paused at the 19 inch computer monitor in the room outside the MRI machine room. “Is that my brain?” I asked stupidly, examining the image in front of me.
“Yep,” he responded.
There it was. I realized I was looking at the inside of my head, and saw the countours of my sinusses with two bright white balls where my eyes were. The right hemisphere was easily twice the size of the left, looking very unbalanced in there. I guess when people talk about being “right-brained” or “left-brained”, I now definitely know which camp I’m in. We’re talking grapefruit versus lime here. But hey, it’s been serving an excellent purpose all these years, allowing me to write songs, hold a job, and stay out of prison. Ultimately, it was doing its job, even if it did look strange on the monitor.
And three inches above my left eyeball in the picture, I saw a pea-sized gray fuzzy blob. It didn’t look like brain or anything else inside that head.
I don’t know what that means. Maybe it’s a shadow on the monitor. Maybe it’s a tumor. Maybe it’s just my skull. But it definitely looked out of place.
More news Monday, when I hear back from the doc. Leaving me to be slightly freaked for the rest of the weekend.
UPDATE: It’s a cyst. See later blog entries for details.