Inside Gigi's World

The MRI technician hands me an oversized hospital gown that should go to my knees but instead dances flowingly around past my ankles and a pair of hospital pants with a distinct pattern of stripes and polka dots which are colored baby pink, mint green, and sky blue. The pattern looks like the 1980s regurgitated them into existence, finding their home on my short frame. 

 “You can keep your socks and underpants on but everything else comes off. You can put all of your personal belongings in the cubby in the corner and lock it up. Bring the key with you. Don’t lose it. You’re the only one with a key.”

He leaves the room and I do as I am told. I toss everything into the cubby and lock it up tight. I panic for a moment when I recall how he told me not to lose the key, however these pants have no pockets and even if they did, the key is metal and my goodness, what would happen if I went into the MRI machine with a metal, foreign object…and where the hell am I supposed to put this key. 

My socks are still damp from running in the rain. My toes feel like little raisins and I wish they would have let me keep my bra on. 

I have been trying to get out of this MRI and CTA Scan since I found out that I needed them. All this pomp and circumstance for a droopy eyelid seems a bit much but when doctors start saying things like, “strokes,” “blood clots,” and “sudden death,” a girl starts to freak out a little. I still can’t help but  try to rationalize all of this information in such a quick time. I tell myself that if I had been throwing strokes up like gang signs for the last two or three years, you’d think someone, somewhere, would have probably picked up on this at some point…is what I keep telling myself to make me feel better, give me a little bit of comfort. 

I exit the room that holds the locked cubby like a fashion model in my festive garb and wet socks. I follow the tech with my damp feet that leave a trail of my footprints as I follow about two strides behind and we make our way to the elevator. It’s not really an elevator though. It’s more like an industrial piece of metal on a rig, like something you’d see in a mechanics’ garage—big enough to fit a hospital bed I suppose. There are bars attached all around the slab of metal floor we are standing on. I think it must be in case there are any jumpers. I wonder why we don’t just use the small set of stairs that sit beside this contraption. There goes a lady up the stairs carrying a stack of sheets that are going to cover the bed of the MRI machine that I am about to lay on and she is moving a whole lot faster than we are. Besides, it’s my head that the doctors think is broken, my legs are perfectly capable of walking up some stairs.

As we (very) slowly ascend, the lift shrills an obnoxious beeping sound, like an eighteen-wheeler trying to warn passer-byers and other automobiles that the driver can’t see a thing and he’s about to run you over if you don’t move out of the way. I feel heavy like an eighteen-wheeler right now. As my socks slowly dry, they keep my legs weighted in place like concrete blocks. 

Beep…beep…beep…beep…beep…

The distance we rise is shorter than me—even with my stumpy legs, I could have hoisted myself right up into the mobile MRI station. It might have possibly even made less of a scene, even in this outfit. The MRI technician tries to make small talk but all I hear is Beep…beep…beep…beep…beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. 

We reach our desired height, I mean destination, and the tech bends over to unlatch the door that rolls up with one swift, powerful heave. The interior of the mobile MRI is exposed to me. One man sits behind a desk that looks like the control board on an episode of Star Trek. Gadgets beep, random lights ping, I begin to secretly pray that someone is going to beam me up from this sterile wasteland. There are women who scurry around; one packs a small, built-in cabinet with clean, white sheets while the other one takes them out behind her to place on the bed where I’ll be lying once they strap me down and suck my body into a medical vortex. 

The MRI tech pulls the door shut behind us and I feel like I could be in a far-away galaxy, light years away. The mobile MRI unit feels like it couldn’t be anymore than ten feet long and three feet wide—although I am sure it is. The inhabitants move around each other with the ease of people who have been working in tight quarters for a long time; they move as one. They talk to me, direct me where to go, where to place my head and arms but all I can hear is the loud humming of the machines in this strange place. A heightened awareness floods my body and I begin to feel anxious. I do not belong in this place. I feel big and clumsy, even at 5’1”. No matter how I move or where I go—even when it is where they tell me to move, tell me to go—I feel like I am in the way. I bump into things. I knock things over. I feel claustrophobic in my head and the cage they plan on locking my head into, hasn’t even been placed there yet. 

The MRI technician that I was with earlier begins to explain to me what’s going to happen, “I can hold your key for you while you’re in the machine. You’re going to feel some hugging as we pull the rails to the bed up. We can’t hear you at all and the machine is loud so we give you a button you can press if you need to talk to us. Here, it’s right here, hold it.” I squeeze it in my hand while he continues, “There will be what looks like a cage that we lock so your head doesn’t move. We need you and your head to be still. It is very important for the imagining that you do not move around. There are a few spaces between the bars so you can look if you want to, some people like to be able to see while others freak out if they can see so we can put a washcloth over your eyes if you’d prefer but once it’s there you can’t remove it because of the cage. Would you like the washcloth?”

I look up at the overly-lit picture of white and pink cherry blossoms on the backdrop of a bright blue sky. It feels like when you go to the gynecologist’s office for your yearly pap smear and above your head—in your direct line of sight, while you’re stuck laying there on your back, feet in stirrups, feeling like you’re giving birth to a bald-headed seventy-year-old man—there hangs a poster of a fluffy kitten, dangling from a rope that says, “Just hang in there.”

I take a deep breath in and blow it out in a small whistle, “Yeah. I’ll take the washcloth.”

He walks away to grab me the covering for my face. 

I continue to look up at the cherry blossoms; we are in a world of our own when a woman’s voice brings me back to the place where I lay on an MRI machine.

“What?” I ask. 

“Do you want ear plugs? The machine is loud. Most people like earplugs.”

“Oh. Sure. Thank you.”

She flashes me the little white earplugs and I take them from her hands. She asks, “Do you want help putting them in?”

“No, I can do it myself.” I have decided that I’d like to keep as much of my dignity that I can, even dressed like this. 

I confidently shoved those ear plugs right into the canals of my ears, convinced that one of them actually touched my brain. I feel proud, like I was able to have some control in this situation. 

She says, “You put those in wrong.” 

So much for my dignity. 

“I’ll put them in for you. Hand them to me.”

I do as I am told, I shamefully remove the earplugs and hand them to the woman. With two quick movements they were both back in my ears. 

The  male technician returned with the rough washcloth—I hoped it would have been soft. He placed it over my face, turning my whole world dark. I hear the cage lock and I am left alone with my thoughts.