MRI  

Feeling extremely vulnerable today
Tired because I got up too early
Finding my way through another health centre
I’m cold
I didn’t sleep much last night
Tossing and turning
Feeling pain in my right ankle
Wishing it would all just go away
Like this part of my life is a bad dream
And soon I will wake up

I fill out the forms once again
Am asked if I’m wearing any metal
Which I am not
Read a magazine
Follow the nurse into the room
I have my knees propped up with a pillow
My neck is between two brackets
Plastic shower cap on my head
Headphones and bad music
I am moved backwards into the machine
Large toilet paper roll
Blue lines like road markings above
This time a mirror is angled so I can look out
Not so claustrophobic
As the last place
Suddenly the happy morning voice comes on the PA

“We’re going to start now Miss Wilson
How are you feeling?”

I want to scream at the top of my lungs
That I feel like I’m in my fucking coffin

I want to return to my childhood where my health
Was perfect and I didn’t have
Mysterious pain and doctors who didn’t know what was wrong with me
I wanted to run away and hide

A tiny stress tear falls from the corner of my eye

It starts
First the jack hammering sound for 15 seconds
Then the tumble dryer
Then the mad bee sound
All reverberating around my brain
I feel like I’ve been handed a death sentence
Without even knowing their diagnosis
I feel almost doomed
I refuse to read anything on what I may have
So I’m not more paranoid than normal

15 minutes later
The room is demagnetized
I am helped up and asked again
How I am feeling
I’m told that in two weeks my doctor will call with my results

I go to my little locker
Unlock it with my key
Get dressed
And walk out into a beautiful sunlit parking lot

For two weeks
I am free

© 2007 Rosemary Wilson