Well, I thought. This is how the
world works. All energy flows according
to the whims of the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him. He
knew. He knew all along.
Hunter S.
Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
It is
decided that among all the tests they are running they are going to run an MRI
on my brain, brain stem, and do a contrast dye scan of the veins in my
neck. I’ve had MRIs before, so I’m not
concerned and they wheel me to another part of the hospital. On the way we talk about how the hospital
gets busier when the weather gets better, not because people suffer more
injuries, but because they are more likely to go out in better weather to get
to the hospital when they need to. Why
do we live here again?
One thing
I neglected to tell the tech is that I developed claustrophobia a few years
ago. I have no explanation as to
why. I had no traumatic experience
involving closed spaces. I’ve never had
claustrophobia before and have even had to exhale to squeeze myself under a car
I was working on. I’ve been in MRIs before
with no problem. I figured if it became
an issue I would just grunt it out.
Little did I know.
I’m
strapped in with my head gear on and they slide me into the MRI tube. I am definitely freaking out, but I keep
taking breaths in through my mouth and out my nose. I try every relaxation technique I can think
of, but my mind is racing and I’m starting to lose control of my breathing. I keep fighting the full on freak out with
everything I have.
The tech
had given me a little squeeze ball on the end of a cord to squeeze and alert
him if I was having trouble while in the MRI.
I didn’t pay much mind to it because I didn’t think I would need
it. This ball and its cord are somewhere
wrapped up in a multiplicity of cords, IVs, and blankets. I try to find it, but I can’t. I try not to let this freak me out more. I keep trying to calm myself down counting time
in my head. I figured I had been in
there about 30 minutes. Another 45
minutes to go. I can do this. I’m starting to get light headed. They are no monitors on me. This is probably not good. I search for the ball again and I don’t care
if I pull out my IVs. I find the ball
and start squeezing over and over again.
Not quickly enough, they get me out of the MRI.
I’m
bummed and they seemed disappointed that my only problem was freaking out. I figure we have to start from the beginning
again and I’m not sure what I can do. I find out I was only in there about 15 minutes. The
nurse says she can get a hold of a doctor and see if she can get me a
sedative. They all leave the room.
I look
back at the MRI machine as I sit there tethered by my IVs thinking we could
have a little chat and come to an understanding. At that moment I couldn’t help but notice
that it looks sort of like a Paul Bunyon sized sex toy for
self-gratification. That didn’t help.
The nurse returns with Ativan and pushes it into my IV line. It hits me quickly and I unintentionally smile as I answer their questions. I think this might work. They put on the head gear again and back in I go. I’m definitely still freaking out, but seem better able to handle it. I continue to freak out and try to maintain and make it all the way through.
They are
done and I need to get on the gurney to get wheeled back to the emergency
room. I swing my legs to the side of the
MRI platform as the tech manages my IVs and the floor rushes up and slaps me on
the bottoms
of my feet as if I had jumped from an indeterminable height only
defined by contact with the ground. I
let out an audible “whoa” and wobbled catching myself on the edge of the gurney
before I fell. I pull myself back up and
manage to get on.
At this
point I have been at this for about 5 hours. It’s 1:30 AM. The doctors and nurses that had previously
been treating me are gone. I’m back in
the room in the ER and I
ask them to leave my doors open since I’m right next to the ambulance bay doors
and I can watch people come in. It's
quiet. A young barefoot hippie chick
somnambulates in under her own power followed by EMTs. A couple of older black men with vacant looks
in their eyes are wheeled in.
Quiet. None of the excitement
when I first came in.
I meet my
new nurses, one of which looks like an obese and unkempt version of Jerry
Garcia. Finally, a small, timid, mousy
doctor comes in with my results. She
tells me in the form of an unfinished sentence that they can’t find anything
wrong, and as I wait for her to finish I realize she has nothing else to
say. She leaves.
After
awhile Jerry Garcia comes back in, removes my IV, and starts unceremoniously
tearing off the multiple monitor leads they have taped to my body. I’m free to go. I’m given a couple of pieces of paper I don’t
read and told to go see a doctor in the next few days. He leaves.
At this
point it is past three in the morning, my car is at Urgent Care, and I have no
idea where I am. I know I’m at Regents,
but I don’t know how I’m supposed to get out.
I head out the ambulance bay doors next to my room as the EMTs briefly
take notice and I buy a Diet Coke from the machine outside. I decide to walk. My car is only a couple miles away. The sedative is still affecting me like I was
stepping on shore after being on a boat for a long time. I still had my sea legs, but it was downhill
and my footing had to come back at some point with a little effort.
It's dark
out, and with a limited sense of direction I try to orient myself. I see a highway that must be Hwy 94 and start
walking.
_________________________________________________________________________________
I wake up
the next morning and realize that I need to find a doctor. The last time I found a doctor I ended up
with a pernicious little 30 year old DO who represented everything bad about
being 30. Big ego with low self-esteem
expressed in self-aggrandizing behavior.
That’s just a fancy of way saying she was a little shit, and I felt like
I spent more time trying to work with her issues than her with mine. Never again.
I call up
the appointment line and expressed to the person helping me that I have a few
requirements. The doctor needs to be
male, at least over 40, and speak English as their native language. This narrows things down considerably and I
have a choice of three doctors at the clinic I want to go to.
She is
willing to help me with these requirements and we are both online looking at the
profiles of the doctors. I click on the
first link and a picture comes up of a blonde haired doctor with a porn star
moustache and a bolo tie. I’m sure he’s
a nice man and a fine doctor, but no. I
randomly choose between the other two and an appointment is set for later in
the day.
The
waiting room on an early Wednesday afternoon is quite different than the early
evening. Instead of gangsters, the
morbidly obese, and sullen teenagers, I’m sitting with the elderly. The children have their own pen far on the
other side of the building. I am very thankful
for this design. Things are calm and quiet and I prepare to wait the mandatory
45 minutes past my scheduled appointment time to get called back to a room
where I sit for another half hour before the doctor shows.
I’m
astonished when I’m called back right away and the nurse takes my vitals and
gathers all the information she needs. She
lets me see my test results on the computer screen and tells me the doctor
will be in soon. Now I am left in a room with the hardest word jumble ever…
…and wall
paper brought to you from the shower scene in Psycho; which is either very appropriate or very inappropriate for
a doctor’s office. I can’t decide.
The
doctor comes in and we get oriented as he starts into what I call, “The Doctor
Talk”. I’ve grown used to this. For some reason doctors look at me and assume
I am a fat piece of shit who lives on fast food, frozen pizza, Coke, and
stripper’s broken dreams.
I know
what my test results are. I know what my
test results were last year. He hasn’t hopped on his high horse yet, but he’s cinching up the saddle
as he fires up the computer choosing his first target – salt. Good luck with that one, buddy. He starts his admonishments as I tell him
that I am already aware of what he is telling me. Salt bad.
Got it.
He stops
talking and scrolls through pages of test results from the hospital the night
before. All he sees is rows of green on
a scale that goes from green to yellow to red.
He pushes the computer mouse to the side and turns his chair to face
me. We start a conversation.