Monday, January 08, 2007

MRI


MRI
Originally uploaded by pixieclipx.
I have quite a few of these coming up in the near future. My scans were due in December but the insurance company stalled knowing that I was about to change providers and the new company is demanding to go through all of my records before signing off on the money for me to go ahead again.

These rooms are always incredibly cold - and the gowns that they give you always just the wrong side of the indecent. Though I quickly learned to ask for two and to wear the first backwards - thus ensuring that you're covered right up to the moment when you haul your legs skyward to enter the magnetic donut itself.

The weirdest thing about getting a scan is that despite having a large, warm and well appointed waiting room every hospital and scan center moves you into a corridor when it's time to swallow the barium and wait the requisite hour for treatment. I have no idea why. Perhaps semi-depression and a stiff draught help clarify the image.

Of course as it gets closer to scan times you become more aware of everything going on in your body, I'm hyper-aware of every swollen node, bout of bloating, half pound shift in weight and cough at the moment. It's actually a very strange feeling - being suddenly in touch and in tune with yourself. You start to do more, to eat better and to go to bed that little bit earlier.

And of course the idea that you're about to have your mortality measured means that you up the fun quotient. Right now I really don't care how potentially embarrassing / mortifying a situation might be. I have no shame. I'm joining things. I'm taking part in life again. I'm a participant. Which of course makes me realize that I'm too often a coaster and an observor of life. But - aren't we all?

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