the wonders of modern diagnostic equipment

I believe I only flinched once when I was deep inside the entrails of the MRI machine.  After all, it was only doing a head shot.

Headache? Cancer patient? Check for brain tumor!

Well I don't have one!

There is of course the fear and trepidation as I approach the Great Machine that curiously has a hole in it the same size as my front loading automatic clothes washer; and I immediately have visions of my head being inside of it as the drum begins to rotate.

I am imagining the staples that were put in me to close off my intestine during an appendectomy back in the previous century will come flying out of my abdomen.    I was assured by the tech that this would not happen.

The technical staff informed me that I was in for a two stage experience first they would scan my head and then they would inject dye (Gadolinium almost sounds like linoleum) and scan it again.

My oncologist had asked me if I was claustrophobic.  I was about to understand why.

A small specially designed white plastic cage was placed over my face as I lay there and I felt bracers pushing against the sides of my cheeks to keep my face and head in position while I was in the machine.

There was a squeak; a repetitive squeak as though some old and decrepit machine had a wheel about to fall off.

But the loudest memory I have is of a door buzzer going off right next to my ear.


Somehow they managed to get the door buzzer to vary it's frequency; but not enough to make it melodic.

Oddly, they had put quaint little ear plugs in my ears just before they put the cage over my face and those stupid little things did no good at all.

Between the buzzers and my face being held in place I began to feel the tickle of post nasal drip; that urge to cough and the simultaneous need not to.  I was scolding my self with a "don't screw this up" knowing that to have a problem is to go through this all over again.

My opinion (and understand I have no medical background) is that my neck muscles are in a state of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the tumor that had somehow inserted itself in their midst. They are still stiff and occasionally I notice it.  I think the revlimid helps them to remember and I get headache and sensations just like before.

Peculiar and wonderful stuff this revlimid.  I wonder what torture it will come up with next week?