MRI Fun!

I suppose it's inevitable that as one grows older, one's body wants to fight back. Everything seems to start going kerflooey at the same time.

My newest body gripe is my back. And it's a big one. Growing progressively worse on a seemingly daily basis, I'm at the point now where it's extremely painful to walk or stand 30 seconds at a time.

 So my new back doctor (and I remember the good old days when I had only one doctor; now it's a different doctor for every body part) says he wants me to get an MRI.

I said, "Great! Let's go!"

Then he waffles, hedges, says, "Wellllll...MRI's are tricky. Sometimes insurance companies don't like them."

I thought about saying, "Oh, well...I certainly want to keep the insurance company happy" but refrained from doing so.

So, after a month of haggling with insurance and scheduling people (who always sound like they're talking underwater; there was so much interference with one of them, I had to hang up as I couldn't hear or understand her), I finally had an MRI scheduled for a month away (and the scheduler laughed because I had to get there at 6:30 in the morning; I swan, it's hard to find good employees these days).

Now, I've had one other MRI in my life and that was performed on my head after I fell down once. (I kept telling them "I fell! There's nothing wrong with my head! A fall is sometimes just a fall!") After ignoring me and putting me through all kinds of tests, the nurse finally says, "I think you just fell." Anyway, that was my first MRI experience. And it didn't even begin to prepare me for my next one. I don't know if the machines had somehow become worse over the intervening years or if this was "progress," but day-ummmm!

When I got there--after walking seemingly miles of  corridors (and whose great idea was it to have people with bad backs walk a long way to get treatment?)--they shoved me into one of those stupid gowns. And how does one tie the damn thing in the back anyhow?

So I was put onto a slab in a freezing room, given earplugs (THAT was new) and rolled into a claustrophobic tube. The radiologist told me what to expect, but not really.

The best way I have to describe it is you know all of those cheesy theme parks in Orlando, Florida? The ones with those stupid simulator "rides? Where they strap you into a chair and show a film and then attack you with all sorts of kicks, jolts, tips, and whiffs of stinky stuff? That's the closest I can come to describing the ensuing terrors I found myself locked into.

First came the loud banging and clanging, followed by movement to and fro and back and forth. A barrage of horrific noises attacked me and usually ended with loud bangs and thuds, the earplugs supplying little protection. Then every once in a while, they'd lull you into a peaceful quiet where you think you're finally done, then BANG BANG CLANG BANG all over again. Sudden blasts of air shot at me like I was Marilyn Monroe standing over a sidewalk grate.

Then...at long last...it was mercifully over.

When they rolled me out, the technician asked, "So...how was it?"

"Like the worst carnival ride I've ever experienced."

But I was thrilled to be finished and (bad back or not) pretty much ran from the Chamber of Horrors.

Cut to about two weeks later. And I hadn't heard anything yet. So finally after trying to navigate the ridiculous, hardly user-friendly online portal, I managed to get a message through to the right parties.

After a day, I get a message back, "We don't have any records, reports or images of any such MRI."

Huh.

So I'm still going back and forth with them on this, hoping to God I don't have to go through it again. Ah, the modern miracle of electronics and medicine...

For a different kind of horror story, check out my book Godland. It's a tricky suspense thriller about four very different people and how destiny collides for them on a terrifying farm in Godland, Kansas. Check it out here. Reading it is mandatory.