The next morning I went in for the MRI. My mother drove me again, as my left arm was still limp. We drove for half an hour to the oddest location for a Medical facility, a strange little building under a highway overpass surrounded by construction sites. An enormous empty parking lot and a small sign that said something generic like “Boston MRI” or “Mass MRI.” When we went to check-in, we were informed that we had no appointment and that in fact the MRI mobile truck had been scheduled for Milton Hospital that day and that our appointment had been switched there not long ago, for our convenience. It seemed not at all ironic to the gum-chewing receptionist that, as we stood before her in a seemingly empty facility, devoid of all patients or waiting rooms even for that matter, that we should be diverted half an hour back to the facility 5 minutes from our original location … for our convenience.
In the car on the way back to Milton Hospital, as my disbelief with the relocation subsided, it was replaced by curiosity in that I was being diverted to a “truck” for my medical tests. My Mom babbled all the way about assorted appointment mix-ups that she had encountered in her lifetime, and a few encountered by a variety of relatives of ours, and even one by some guy that was as relevant to us as, say, the dog-catcher in the town where our postman used to live. Apparently he too encountered a medical appointment snafu.
I finally did get to the MRI appointment. And I must say that the mobile MRI truck is about the strangest medical concept I’ve ever encountered, and this would not be my last truck appointment. The idea is that this massively expensive and complex piece of equipment, that is not affordable to all hospitals, be located in a mobile truck and thus be able to drive around to different hospitals and provide the MRI service. Not a bad idea on the surface. Works for blood and book mobiles. It is the implementation that lacks something.
I walked down long hospital corridors in this nice (apart from the sponge incident) white-bread suburban hospital with shiny white walls and helpful directional signs pointing to “Neurology Wing” and “Restrooms,” only to eventually be led by the nurse I am following, into a “mechanical service only” stairwell, out an “emergency exit only” door, on to a loading dock. I was asked to please step up a tilted metal ramp with perforations, such as are used to load cases of beer onto delivery trucks. I paused for a good long time and examined my final surroundings in the loading bay and looked for any signs of officiality. I peered around the backside of the truck and saw what appeared to be a mobile home bearing small lettering “MassMobile MRI.” Well, ok, sort of official. At least when I was rescued from the kidnappers, I could answer the question “Why did you get in the truck?” with “Well, it had a sticker on the side!”
I noticed the nurse remained on the loading dock. Bit disconcerting. I entered the back of the truck. One man in a light blue hospital smock sat at a computer console/MRI control panel and swiveled around and greeted me. “Come on in.” A woman in a white smock then appeared and welcomed me. “Hi. Have you ever had an MRI before?” “No.” “And you are experiencing shoulder pain?” “Yes.” “OK, you’re doctor has ordered the standard MRI and also a contrast, so we will take some initial pictures, and then we will bring you out and give you an injection of a contrast fluid, and take another set. OK?” “OK.” Sure, I’m already in a shady truck with total strangers. Might as well also get injected with stuff, too. While that would be a bit harder to justify to my rescuers, I figured the injection would probably kill me, obverting the necessity for a good explanation.
I had never had a MRI before and was only vaguely sure what it stood for. Magnetic – definitely – and then Imaging Resonance or Image Residence, something like that. A picture of my brain. And I assumed that the “contrast” injection, right before it killed me, made certain parts glow. Not sure how it would know which parts to make glow, and also not sure whether glowing was a good thing or a bad thing. I assumed I would get to see the MRI, so I didn’t ask. And I was still exhausted so pretty compliant at that point, well obviously. I was asked to lie down on a long narrow table of sorts, much like a weight bench, positioning my head in a head cushion at the end pointed towards the massive metal contraption. There was an empty missile tube that apparently I was going to be slid into. Excellent. I was strapped to the table around my waist but could keep my hands just folded across my chest. I was wearing a hospital Johnny and with my legs straight out in the direction of the light blue man seated behind the glass wall, I was sure his day was getting at least a little better. Don’t worry, Mom, I was wearing clean underwear.
The nurse gave me little spongy ear plugs because she said it would get loud in the tube at times. I put in the ear plugs and then had to take them back out because she had more instructions. “Please lie absolutely still in the tube. Keep your head immobile. We can hear you in the booth, and will talk to you periodically to make sure you are okay. Let us know if you need anything. Also, this buzzer can alert us of any emergency. Hold on to this” and she handed me a Jeopardy buzzer attached to the machine with a long cord, “in your right hand and just press it if you need assistance.” Or know the answer. All this put me right at ease. Being given multiple methods of communicating from within my tube should anything, like … a fire, missile launch, or, god forbid, I had to move my head. This actually worried me most, because as soon as she said NOT to move my head at all, I immediately felt the need to sneeze, itch, and just generally shake my head around like a lunatic.
“I am going to take images for 3 minutes, and then again for 1, and then for 3 more,” said the blue man behind the glass, “then I will bring you out, we will give you the injection, and we will do one final 5 minute set. Okay?” I just smiled. “OK, I am going to slide you in now, and I will go into the other room.”
I tried to lie as still as possible. I’m a rule follower. I wondered if blinking counted, but I couldn’t stop blinking anyway, so I guess not. The nurse slid me slowly into the tube and it seemed really quite narrow. Don’t large people ever need MRI’s? Or is that a different truck? There was a mirror rigged on the top of the tube right in front of my eyes. The mirror angles magically (I wasn’t good at physics) allowed me to see the guy in the booth, but this made me a little dizzy so I shut my eyes. “Are you okay in there?” I could hear the nurse talking to me but she sounded like she was yelling to me down a long, underwater tunnel. “Yes.” My voice sounded like it does in your head when your ears haven’t popped yet on an airplane. “OK, we are going to start the 3 minute round.”
As the machine geared up it did sound like a jet engine igniting and I could only imagine the noise without the earplugs. Then, once it hit full speed, the rhythms started. First, a sound like 3 pairs of sneakers in a clothes dryer … with my head in there with them. Then, a spurt of jackhammer sounds that moved from the right side of my head to the left and back. Finally a few quick tones like someone pushing buttons on a telephone. Then it started all over again. Dryer, jackhammer, telephone … dryer, jackhammer, telephone … dryer, jackhammer, telephone. I actually wasn’t hating it. It was a bit interesting in a construction site symphony sort of way. When it stopped, the voice from beyond startled me. “You still ok in there?” “Mm.” “OK, we’ll do 1 minute now.” The next round was similar, but the intervals between the instruments was different. Dryer, jackhammer, jackhammer … long pause … quick telephone tones, etc.
It continued like this and I survived through the third round, too, during which I even almost dozed off to the harmonic din. I was then brought out of the tube, sat up, and injected with contrast. The nurse said that the contrast might make me feel like I had to pee, and also would give me a metallic taste in my mouth. Sounds great. I felt a bit dizzy. The truck, the fatigue, the tube, the needle, all catching up with me. And sure enough, I did feel like I had to pee – or maybe I did have to pee, how would I know the diefference? Didn’t matter, I was slid back into the tube.
After the final round, I had to ask the nurse if I could just sit on the table for a few more minutes, until the dizziness passed. She explained that my doctor (my Mom’s doctor) would get my results today and that he wanted to see me first thing tomorrow to go over them. The nurse that brought me to the truck appeared again at the loading dock, still not entering the truck, and led me back to the hospital room where my Mom was. I got dressed, we scheduled an appointment for the next day at 10:00am with her doctor, and left.
I was feeling better and was feeling guilty about having been out of work for two days now, and tomorrow would be another. I had only had the job for a short time. I did have a fantastic assistant, however, who had actually been training me thus far. I knew that the school where I worked and faculty that I supported were not suffering from my absence. It was more my own need to go back to some semblance of indepenence again. I was deeply appreciative of how understanding my boss was about my absence. I told him what I could, my left arm was experiencing a mild paralysis and I needed some testing to figure it out. I thought that maybe I could go back to work after the doctor’s appointment the next day.
