Actually it was Man vs MRI. For a claustrophobic guy like me, the very thought of getting into a shaft that engulfs you totally was enough to send a shiver down the spine.
After a shoulder injury, my doctor grinned and said, “dude, good news, you don’t have a fracture”. “Oh, No”, that was the precursor. I knew from that moment that if the bones are intact, then it is the damn ligaments and muscles that must have taken the impact.
Then came the long battle. I tried my best to avoid MRI, or the magnetic resonance imaging scan procedure. I took pills, underwent physiotherapy, electric simulations through IFT.
Nope, none of it made the cut and the doctor spelled the three words – MRI.
I was able to avoid it for a month, but my wife’s persistence paid off. She proved what a tough Mayavaram Cauvery delta girl she was. She dragged me to the MRI scan centre.
There I was facing my nemesis. They make you lie on a plank which is then lifted – so far so good. Then you are strapped down. “Heck”, I was able to grind my teeth and bear it. And then you are pushed into the tube like a mould pushed into a plastic injector, or like noodle dough pushed into a mould. The plank I was on was pushed head-first into the MRI tube. All that went inside was my forehead, when my heart skipped a beat and I tried to yank myself violently from the machine. No way. My blood pressure was already up and my heart was beating faster than a Suzuki Hayabusa on nitrous oxide.
“Heck, no…”, I was ready to call off the exercise. But then, my pride was suggesting otherwise. C’mon, you’re a grown up man. What about that bungee-jump in Atlanta or Class 4 white-water rafting in the icy cold Beas river in Manali, fresh off a snow melt. C’mon, you can make it. And with that renewed (false) sense of pride, I attempted the machine again. This time my heart went from Hayabusa on NOS to a V12 27 Litre Rolls Royce Merlin engine on a spitfire plane WEP (war emergency power).
“Bloody hell, no…” I walked out of the room, much to the amusement of the attender who I guess had never seen a claustrophobic guy before, and he was blank, totally blank. He was like, why, what’s the problem, what are you afraid of?
Hmmm, how do I explain to him the panic attack I was going through. Anyway, then came the ubiquitous Malayalee sister. She was stern, stubborn and had a “been there done that” kind of attitude. She looked at me and instantly said “ Yei, pedikkanda, rende nimitannu (don’t be afraid – it’s just a two-minute job)”.
Somehow that elderly/sisterly, warm and compassionate “ mein hoo na (I am here)” kind of dialogue soothed me and she suggested a doppler instead of an MRI. “Yep,” it was a breeze, a wide airy machine that doesn’t look as if it is an alien trying to gobble you. I was in and out in a minute.
But it was all part of a planned diversion by the experienced sister. She said there was a small delta, a clarification, an additional piece information, that was missing and hence it needed only an “o ru nimit or rendu nimit (one minute or two minute)” exposure in the MRI machine. I can’t quite believe I trusted that, so I was put on the machine, strapped down so I don’t escape, lifted and again fed like minced meat going into a sausage maker. I had to shut my eye tight so I don’t realise whether I was in or out of the machine.
That was not even the start of the battle, my heart was beating fast, the sides of the machine were pushing in on me, and then the Loud, Louder and Loudest noises that you can hear. It was like a rocket launch right next to your ears.
Honestly the noise was not an issue, it was the claustrophobia that was eating into all my senses. Time came to a standstill, “ Makhayam makhare maase chakramsam bhargavothbavam …..” – that was the verse my spiritual guru had asked me to recite whenever I was in trouble, and unknowingly I had started reciting that.
I must have recited it several times. Time stood still and the machine was inching closer to me (my whole life started flashing before my eyes). Was the tube trying to gobble me up (at least that is what I felt)? Four cycles of scans passed and I was at the edge of my sanity when the sounds stopped and I could feel the flat bed yanking me out of the machine. Whew... I stood up sweating profusely and barely able to stand – it took a while to get back to my senses. It was just seven minutes, but felt like eons had passed.
So, for all of you out there, if you are not claustrophobic, none of what I had said will make sense, so feel free to ignore it. And for those who were “blessed” like me, just do your homework, find out an open MRI, or better still, if you have an injury, just break your bones, instead of tearing your ligaments. That way all that you need is a simple X-ray and not the person-gobbling MRI equipment.
