The American Spectator

Reader Mail

MRI Torture

3.10.09 @ 6:01AM

AN ANECDOTE WITH RESONANCE
Re: Reid Collins's The MRI and I:

Having my years of "heavy age," I've had to endure a number of medical tests -- especially after the discovery of cancer. I, too, have had an MRI.

I have a ringing in my left ear and I've had it since I first noticed it in college. After all these years, I asked my ENT physician if anything could be done. She immediately ordered the MRI to see if the problem was in the inner ear.

We tried a "closed" MRI first; but my elbows were painfully being pushed into my ribcage before I was all the way into the tube. So next was the "open" MRI.

An "open" MRI is much like a "closed" one except you have much greater room to rest your arms and you can see light coming in from the room itself. Nevertheless, the top of the scanner is still only two or three inches from your nose.

In my case, they put my head in a cage which was then bolted upon the table. I admitted to the nurses that in my old age I have become claustrophobic. (I have no idea where this came from) One the nurses then put a dry washrag over my eyes. "People who don't like tight spaces find this helps." With the instructions to always keep still, I was slid into the machine.

As warned, it made a terrible racket. At times it was almost frightening. Staying still required some willpower. But what was the most horrible was the intense disorientation. After a few short minutes, I could not tell how much time had past. Many times I wondered if forty minutes had past or only four or five. I honestly couldn't tell. The music I had counted on to help me know how much time I had left to endure was completely inaudible. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I had no sense of time. I couldn't think of anything much past the noise. I remembered the passage from Matthew's gospel: "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"

I almost begged to be let out several times; but I didn't want to give up the effort I had already made. "Go to your happy place. Go to your happy place." Funny, I had never considered exactly what my "happy place" was before.

Suddenly, the machine became quiet and I was being pulled out of the MRI. "Stay still, Mr. Dooley, we're putting the contrast fluid in your arm and then we'll put you back in for just three more pictures. Once returned into the MRI, I suddenly realized that I had no idea how long "three pictures" took. Was it longer than what I had just been through? Was it less?

It was a bad as it was before; but, thankfully, it ended. After being taken out of the machine and freed from the table, it was wonderful to see light and hear normal sounds.

Not remembering how I got there, I almost walked into another man's room where he was sitting in a thick leather easy chair. The room was dim and his nurse was giving him some pills in a cup. My nurse quickly turned me the right way. "That man is being sedated for his MRI," she said. "When they are tranquilized, often times they don't even remember being in the MRI." Now they tell me.

Don't get me wrong. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing. But that "sedated" MRI? I'll keep that in mind if there is a next time.
-- Mike Dooley

AN EFFICIENT WAY TO WASTE
Re: Eric Peters's Safety Inefficiency:

Finally I have been vindicated. This has been my mantra for so many years. The other part of the emission laws is that they are not needed. The engine should be cared for, serviced and clean. No emissions come from these cars. I saw a ten year old Buick way back when they were first starting to engineer the cataylic converter. The fellow was a Sears Service Man working at my home. He insisted the above was true and led me to his car, opened the hood. There in front of me was a shining gorgeous engine which he swore gave out no exhaust.

Florida has just passed a higher emission control bill. These people do not know what they are doing. California could be out of debt by taking the gas and oil caps off and let the millions flow. Barney Frank helped ruin our economy by giving to the poor and asking us to pay. Did they fire the idiot? He is still handling our tax money. Insane.
-- Sarah Baynes

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