If this were a normal day, I would be home too. This is the time of night when I sleep best, before the interminable wee hours. But tonight is not a normal. I am descending in a rumbling elevator to the basement for my 11:30 MRI. It seemed odd. Who'd have thought that the MRI schedule ran till midnight? Given the choice of waiting till next year, I signed on. So here I am.
I've read about MRIs on the web. I've heard stories from ex-work buddies. Everyone seems to have a tale. But, this is my first. I am secretly apprehensive. I am secretly claustrophobic.
I am 10 minutes early. The waiting room is bright and deserted. No one is at reception. I poke my head over the counter. No one insight. I thump my coat pocket for my copy of Wenk's John Muir Trail. I'm good. I'm prepared.
I take one of the less-than-cheery orange chairs that line the walls. Across the room, a pretty actress, who is displaying a generous cleavage, weeps as a bare-chested actor exits, stage right, off the flat panel. I am annoyed and weary. Why must TV be everywhere hammering at our senses seducing us away from our own thoughts.
I grab Wenk and crack the book where I left off. Oh yes. We are skirting a large meadow of Kelley's lilies, sneezeweed and swamp onion. Pink flowered shrubs decorate the slope on our right. Just ahead is the 14,000 foot granite wall of the Palisades. The pinnacles are reflected in the cerulean blue water of Lower Palisades Lake. My thoughts drift from the page. I imagine the crisp air and clouds racing above. My pace is good. I am now strong and my pack is now an organic part of me. Up head, there are trail friends. We will camp together and laugh at our hiking adventures as we relish our freezer-bag dinners. Then the temperature drops and we crawl into our warm sleeping bags, tired and happy as we stare out at the transparent night sky. Just then, the receptionist bursts through the door. She is a large, square-figured woman. She wears a low-cut red cocktail dress, necklace and dangly earrings. I am astonished, but given the late hour and the absence of any other living soul, her get-up is explainable. She takes her seat at the terminal and types aggressively.
She looks in my direction "Mr. Meyer?" I nod. "I can check you in now."
I walk over and hand her my med card. She continues to type. "Am I under dressed?" I ask.
She shoots me a quick disapproving glance and says, "Your co-pay is $15. How will you pay?" I hand over my Visa. She hands me a receipt. "Follow me," she says.
She punches in the door code and we pass into a white-tiled, curving corridor. We follow it for several minutes. We pass a few intersecting corridors before turning into another white-tiled corridor. Then another. And another. At last she walks up to a windowless door that bears a plaque that says "preparation room."
"Here we are," she says as she opens the door with a key that hangs from a wrist band. I follow her in. She opens a cabinet and hands me a snow-flake smock. "Put this on. You can keep your socks." Then she hands me a plastic bag. "Put your clothes and valuables in the bag. Don't leave them. We are not liable for theft. The technician will be here shortly." With that she leaves.
I change into my all-time favorite garment: the open-back exam gown. I keep my socks. I stuff my clothes, my wallet and my watch into the plastic bag and take a seat on the bench to wait. I notice a second, coded door and full-size illustrations of both male and female skeletons. Each illustration has a frontal and side views. I study the differences. The minutes seem to stretch out. I walk around and try the cabinets. They are all locked. I open the chrome lids on the glass jars of tongue depressors and cotton balls. Then I notice an exit diagram is screwed to the door. I study it. I seems to have no relation to the corridors I just walked. "Not surprising," I think and sit down to wait some more.
More time passes. I begin to think that something is wrong. Could they have forgotten me? I pace a bit thinking I should get dressed and look for help. I decide I'm being impatient and dig Wenk out of my plastic bag. But I cannot concentrate so I stuff the book back in the bag. I decide to have a look out into the corridor. I try the door. It is locked.
Just at that moment there's a knock on the 2nd door. A small bearded man enters. He wears an open, light-blue lab coat with a badge that sports his beardless image. "Hello," he says. "My name is Serge, I will be your radiographer today. Sorry for the delay. Please take your things and follow me."
He holds the door for me. I grab my plastic bag and I pin my exam gown tight to my side. He leads me into a brightly lit passage that slopes down. It is more like a tunnel than a corridor. The shiny white walls appear to be hewn from bedrock. The air is odorless.
"This is a strange place." I say
"I know," says Serge. "They are very concerned about shielding the instruments."
"From what?"
"Frankly sir, I don't know. I'm just a technician."
I begin to feel very troubled. Something seems too wierd. I start to feel anxious.
He leads me through an antechamber with X-Rays on the wall into a high-ceilinged, circular room with the MRI imager situated in the middle. He asks me to lie down on a pad that rests on sled-like mechanism that will carry me into the cylindrical chamber that sits inside a torrus. "Just relax," he says as he reassuringly tucks the sheets around me. "The process takes about 30 minutes. It's important that you do not move or we will have to start over." He hands me ear plugs. "It will be loud. You will feel vibration and you may feel some heat inside. It is not dangerous." Then he places a grip with a button in my hand. "Take this. If you feel you must come out, just press the button. OK? Ready?"
Actually, I am not ready. This is not at all what I expect. It's as if I entered some other reality, a perverse destiny that began when that appointment nurse signed me up. It feels very weird, irrational, wrong. But I know that destiny is neither perverse or irrational. It just is. "Ready," I say.
Serge takes his seat at the controls. He activates the sled. I slide into the chamber. My nose is not even an inch from the cylinder wall. My breath bounces back in my face. There is no room to turn my hands never mind wiggle. I force myself to stay calm. I try to visualize the reflection of the stars in Lower Palisades Lake. I cannot concentrate. I am trapped. If there was a failure, I would not be able to get out on my own. Then the machine starts to vibrate. It is loud. Deafening. The earplugs do not help. I try to imagine the Palisades Peaks. I cannot think. My insides begin to heat up. They get hotter. They begin to burn. I panic. I press the button, but nothing happens. I press again and again. The machine is just getting louder. I am cooking from the inside. I start to shout.
And then I feel a shake and hear...
Sir? Sir? Sir?