Tricky Business

40 minutes in that tube, that miraculous brownie box of the 21st century, the MRI machine. "Take a breath and hold" - I must have done that 30 times, trying to get the perfect picture of my jems, my kidneys. I really tried to behave, knowing that if I could provide the perfect pictures, the guys in Massachusetts would Pick Me! Pick Me! Arms above my head, gliding through imagined tropical waters with each breath, I can swim through this! Pick Me! Pick Me!

I won't know for two weeks. The pictures get shipped to Mass and then analysed by some research genius as to size and number or cysts. Lovely Lorie said that a gaggle of siblings were trying to get into the study, competing for the greatest number of cysts. I like that. Humor above all else.

Later that afternoon, the study doctor and other research tech (Lovely had the day off) said that I was the first person to describe to them the arduois MRI process. Leave it to me to be the biggest whinner. But I was interested in knowing how people who were sick or out of shape could handle such torture? I had two years of pilates training and could actually freeze up my midsection like a slab of granite, speaking to each can in my 6-pack and willing it to rigormorph (just know that my 6-pack lies under a mound of flab so don't think I am bragging). How did the other patients manage it?

Next time I will bring something to hold in my hands (which are raised above my head in side the tube). I will tell the Tech that I don't need to rest in between the 18th and 19th "Take a breath". I just want to power through it. Lets get my time down, I want a personal best of 38 minutes, maybe 37 minutes in the tube.

Lets hope I get the chance.