MRI Musings

Musings on my MRI
5/21/2018

People who don’t know MS 

never give me the look. 

I can’t fool the 

radiology department though. 

Their gaze,

equal parts 

compassion and sorrow—

an unsettling sense of

validation. 

Slowly lowering myself on the

sliding slab, 

encapsulated, 

a mask over my face, 

thin blanket covering me like a shroud 

to stave off the chill,

arms pinned to my sides as

I’m moved into the tube—

as narrow and 

quiet as a tomb.

I’m instructed not to move as I

attempt to lose myself to classical

music soundly loudly in my ears.

But not even Vivaldi's frenzied

violins of Winter

can drown out 

swelling cacophony of the

machine’s 

jackhammers, 

whirls, 

banging

vibrations 

searing beneath 

my skin, bones, 

tissue and veins,

creating an image of the battlefields

where my body has attacked 

itself, leaving ragged tears 

in my brain and spinal cord—

delicate nerves

raw, exposed, confused

sending an SOS 

throughout my CNS.

Fruitless distress calls

misinterpreted, 

manifesting symptoms I 

cannot control.

Contrast is injected,

a veritable floodlight

illuminating the creases of my brain,

shining through opaque density of 

my spinal cord, looking 

for evidence of destruction. 

Still unaccustomed to this brave

new world, grasping to

understand the reality of it all;

I gently rise up,

thanking the radiologists

for their precise invasiveness.

Lost in thought, I walk slowly 

across the parking lot

into a darkening sky, 

strains of the fading sunset

grasping for one last 

glimmer of hope before twilight.