Truckin, like the Doo Dah man

I already knew from Barb's most excellent adventure to the ER that an ambulance trip lacks a great deal in the smooth and comfortable ride category. It is, after all, a ride in the back of a truck - a truck with no springs and no shock absorbers. At least it had a top and was air conditioned. When we were in El Salvador, we noticed that the ambulances there all seemed to be Toyota pickups, with a cot bolted in the back. We didn't even get to go really, really fast with lights flashing and such. Instead, it was a bumpy, lumpy ride with a lot of stops and starts, and every jolt was a kick in the gut. Literally.

But ride we did, to another hospital with a bigger MRI machine (for the rationale behind this, go here). We disembarked (more bumps and jolts) and sailed right past the ER department in the new hospital, much to the concern of the admissions personnel, and found our way to another MRI cave and another MRI technician, a tiny woman of Asian descent. I mean no disrespect, but this woman was almost impossible to understand; it was all the bad oriental language stereotypes come to life.

The tech and I had a lengthy conversation about "any meadows" and I finally figured out that it was metal she was asking about. Then I told her that I had been promised some good pharmaceuticals before being totally sealed in a tiny space no bigger than a Pringles can and she vehemently indicated that would not happen because I had to remain alert, only when she said it, it sounded as if I needed to stay "a-wert."

The next thing I know, I'm on the rail-bed with a pillow strapped to my stomach, my hands loosely strapped above my head, ear-plugs stuffed in my ears, a pair of headphones clamped over that (Wait! Aren't these metal?) and I'm sliding into a space that was too small for human occupancy, by far! Did you know that if you squeeze your eyes tightly shut, you can pretend there is not a sarcophagus surrounding you, mere inches away?

MRI machines are noisy. That's why they put plugs in your ears. But if your ears are plugged up, then you cannot clearly hear the instructions in the headphones. And if you cannot clearly hear instructions that you couldn't understand if you could clearly hear, then there is a great deal of confusion, and shouting back and forth. Well, mostly I was the one doing all the shouting, and mostly I shouted, "I can't hear you!" The technician evidently couldn't hear me at all, so all my shouting was to no avail.

Finally, we worked out a basic communication set; when the technician said, "Mmmrph aw blurgle blevis." I would take a deep breath and hold it until she said, "Blaath et reeble." Only most of the time I couldn't hold my breath that long because it really hurt to take a deep breath. This went on for about 45 minutes, and then she rolled me out far enough to reach my arms, injected me with some type of contrast dye and stuffed me back in my sausage casing for another 15 minutes of  "Mmmrph aw blurgle blevis."

I spent an hour in that tin can, trying to hold my breath while the machine clanked and hammered and knocked. My back hurt, my stomach hurt, my arms were cramped, and when we were done, I got to ride back across town in the back of a truck. And do you know what? The doctor didn't find out anything. But I did. I learned that there are now two things that I will do only if someone holds a gun to my head: a sleep study, and an MRI! And you can put that in my medical record!