An hour?!

June 10, 2015BlogNo Comments

Tonight I had to have an MRI on my leg and ankle. It was a night time appointment because at the private hospital at which it was done the MRI machine is used for in-patients in the day and ‘others’ at night. And in addition, there are only three MRI machines in our city.

I trotted along dressed in trakkie-daks, windcheater and runners thinking it’s only my legs, I’ll only have to rip the daks and shoes off and she’ll be apples…

But no. I was told everything off, including jewelry, and please put on this fetching hospital robe (blue – that was a consolation), give us your valuables in this green bucket and we’ll lock it in this secure locker for you!

I undressed, pulled on the aforesaid garment…

thinking of Jack Nicholson in Something’s Gotta Give and tying the sash REALLY tight. They took me to the machine and I climbed aboard the plank

(trust me, Jack Sparrow’s planks would be no wider), laid down, had earplugs passed over, my bracelets all lined with tissues so they didn’t lie against my skin. And then they dropped the bombshell.

‘We have an hour booked for you, Mrs. Batten.’

What? AN HOUR?

I am claustrophobic. I hate planes, caves, lifts, crowds, traffic jams, dentist’s and … MRI machines.

I said ‘But what if I need to pee?’

‘Then you will have to hold on because we need the same image right through. What sort of music would you like us to pipe through your earphones?’

Music, when I am desperate to pee? ‘Um – easy listening, no Water Music!’

And it started, lots of buzzing, clacking, thrumming and as I was warned, the body does heat a little. As I lay there, I wondered if my pee heated too. But then I thought I’d better do some meditation and maybe write a bit more of Tobias in my head and maybe a blog…

Along with Rod Stewart, Peter Allen, Elton John, and lots of 60’s and 70’s music, the hour passed. It was a loooooong hour.

And when I got home, the links to my cousin’s foundation, Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision, were in my email and I wondered how many MRI’s Maddie had and how many hours, weeks and months she had been chained to a claustrophobic space in an ICU and what right had I to complain about an hour in an MRI machine.

If I can get one single person to donate one single dollar to Maddie’s foundation through my little blog, I will be so immensely happy because Maddie was truly one of the bravest young folk I know.