Hello Fellow Travelers!
The disappearance of Malaysian Flight #370 has brought into sharp focus the antiquated system we depend on to explain flights that vanish. The "black box" isn't very helpful if you can't find it. Ask CNN. So regardless of how this tragedy ultimately plays out I'm sure they'll be many changes to the boxes resulting from the inherent limitations of them.
Similarly are the machines that map your brain, the Magnetic Resonance Imager or MRI. The MRI is still a giant doughnut that takes a series of images of your brain. The necessity of these images is beyond questioning. When I learned that annual MRIs were going to be a fixture in my life, I took notice of the apparatus which hasn't significantly changed since the late 80's. The machine itself still looks like a behemoth doughnut with a hole in the middle for the patient. The MRI is truly something out of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Even when idling the MRI belches and spits! But it doesn't eventually spit out a multi-dish piece of gum, that would be good. That would make sense! No, the best thing the MRI can answer is the only question that counts: Is it cancer?
To answer this question one has to periodically submit to the MRI. In my case, my annual MRI's tap into my lifelong fear of enclosed spaces. The MRI is claustrophobe's worst nightmare: You are put inside the "belly of the beast" and told to lie "very still". No problem there! I'm so scared, I don't move. And nothing scares me anymore, except MRI's! I've even made peace with the freakin' spiders! Patient Spouse suggested I write a story about being trapped in the MRI with spiders but I just can't go there!
Because for the truly claustrophobic, the MRI looks and feels like being locked in a coffin. Or at least how I picture being trapped in a coffin beneath a lot of dirt. Of course, in "Kill Bill Vol. II" Uma Thurman prevails,(she is, after all, Uma Thurman), but Kill Bill II always gives me "the willies", at the claustrophobia part. "A Texas Funeral" is being buried alive. I thought I had figured out a coping skill for the MRI - I just wouldn't do it anymore. My fear is irrational and overwhelming. "So that's a "Texas Funeral" I have to hand it to you Budd! That's a pretty f*&!!@ up way to die!" comments Daryl Hannah right before she dispatches Budd with a well-placed Black Mamba (it's a great movie! Lots of female empowerment!).
Patient Spouse reminded me that returning cancers return in the first five years so skipping the machine is not really an option.(Another reason I love my PS! He's really patient! But since it's fear that's overwhelming and impervious to reason I'll go with "Plan B" - lots of valium! "Prince Valium" as Winona Ryder referred to it in "Beetlejuice". I'm not typically a fan of "better living through chemistry" but these are desperate times and besides, I have a year to think of better coping strategies. I survived the last one because the wise tech pulled me out of the doughnut a couple of times and it was just enough time for me to look around and get my bearings again. So that worked out well! Two more years in the MRI doughnut? Bring it! Embrace the suck!
PS - Happy Birthday, Dad!
The disappearance of Malaysian Flight #370 has brought into sharp focus the antiquated system we depend on to explain flights that vanish. The "black box" isn't very helpful if you can't find it. Ask CNN. So regardless of how this tragedy ultimately plays out I'm sure they'll be many changes to the boxes resulting from the inherent limitations of them.
Similarly are the machines that map your brain, the Magnetic Resonance Imager or MRI. The MRI is still a giant doughnut that takes a series of images of your brain. The necessity of these images is beyond questioning. When I learned that annual MRIs were going to be a fixture in my life, I took notice of the apparatus which hasn't significantly changed since the late 80's. The machine itself still looks like a behemoth doughnut with a hole in the middle for the patient. The MRI is truly something out of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Even when idling the MRI belches and spits! But it doesn't eventually spit out a multi-dish piece of gum, that would be good. That would make sense! No, the best thing the MRI can answer is the only question that counts: Is it cancer?
To answer this question one has to periodically submit to the MRI. In my case, my annual MRI's tap into my lifelong fear of enclosed spaces. The MRI is claustrophobe's worst nightmare: You are put inside the "belly of the beast" and told to lie "very still". No problem there! I'm so scared, I don't move. And nothing scares me anymore, except MRI's! I've even made peace with the freakin' spiders! Patient Spouse suggested I write a story about being trapped in the MRI with spiders but I just can't go there!
Because for the truly claustrophobic, the MRI looks and feels like being locked in a coffin. Or at least how I picture being trapped in a coffin beneath a lot of dirt. Of course, in "Kill Bill Vol. II" Uma Thurman prevails,(she is, after all, Uma Thurman), but Kill Bill II always gives me "the willies", at the claustrophobia part. "A Texas Funeral" is being buried alive. I thought I had figured out a coping skill for the MRI - I just wouldn't do it anymore. My fear is irrational and overwhelming. "So that's a "Texas Funeral" I have to hand it to you Budd! That's a pretty f*&!!@ up way to die!" comments Daryl Hannah right before she dispatches Budd with a well-placed Black Mamba (it's a great movie! Lots of female empowerment!).
Patient Spouse reminded me that returning cancers return in the first five years so skipping the machine is not really an option.(Another reason I love my PS! He's really patient! But since it's fear that's overwhelming and impervious to reason I'll go with "Plan B" - lots of valium! "Prince Valium" as Winona Ryder referred to it in "Beetlejuice". I'm not typically a fan of "better living through chemistry" but these are desperate times and besides, I have a year to think of better coping strategies. I survived the last one because the wise tech pulled me out of the doughnut a couple of times and it was just enough time for me to look around and get my bearings again. So that worked out well! Two more years in the MRI doughnut? Bring it! Embrace the suck!
PS - Happy Birthday, Dad!
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