My Body Is A Traitor
I was on a date with an MRI machine last night — and it was not fun.
For the past week, I have been googling the hell out of my symptoms, but somehow it has never occurred to me to google the specifics of the fun procedure I had scheduled for Friday.
I did have an MRI once before, for my knee — it was not half as bad, mostly because only the part from the waist down went inside the tube.
Yesterday they had to do an MRI on my spine.
It was pretty evident from the start that this time my whole body would be submerged. For half an hour.
I did not expect that.
By the second song (they actually gave me earphones with a radio playing) my arms started twitching, and soon enough I had a panic attack. I had trouble breathing, and while I was not supposed to move, moving was all I could think of. Radio was not helping at all — Britney Spears and Roxette were screaming in my ears, and I was staring into blank space, with no chance to throw the earphones the fuck away, or to scream for that matter.
By then I realized that all that swagger I have been putting on for the past few days was so fake, even I could no longer believe it.
Friends were asking if I needed any help, or if I wanted someone to accompany me to the clinic, and I pretended as if it was not a big deal, and either one of the suggestions would hurt my dignity beyond repair.
Dignity? I was about to burst into tears lying in an MRI machine. I wanted someone to meet me by the exit, and to take me home, but I pushed everyone the fuck off because allegedly it would hurt my dignity.
I felt both angry and sorry for myself.
***
Here is what happened — last Thursday I was on my way back home, and all of a sudden I felt a sharp pain in my knee. I was walking to the subway station and had at least half an hour ride until my place.
By the time I got out of the subway my leg had hurt so much, all the way from my hip to the ankle, that I had to drag my foot for several minutes more until I finally reached my apartment. I live on a steep side of the city, and that incline I had to take to my building got me screaming at the top of my lungs as soon as I finally stepped inside.
There is hardly any explanation to what I have been experiencing since that day (more than a week now). My pain was getting progressively worse, and I spent an entire Sunday in my bed, battling sudden immobility and pain in my left side of the body and a severe headache. The latter most certainly was another consequence of my raised anxiety.
Well, calling that feeling anxiety does not do it any justice.
You see, I live by myself, and I am also unemployed. My family lives in another city, and it’s not as if I can call my mom and urge her to come at any given point.
I can only rely on myself.
My family does help a little with the rent because my unemployment benefits are so ridiculously low, if it were not for my parents, I would have to choose between paying the rent and eating.
I have to think about finding a job ASAP — or leave Barcelona and go back to live with my parents. And while I am trying to convince myself as if me going back to live with my folks is not the worst option (they have a nice place in a small quiet town) and
I am kind of tired of the city anyway, I can also make an argument why this could be the end of me.
I am 29, and I am turning 30 in August — the last thing I want to do is to share the bedroom with my 22-year old sister.
And then again — for the past few days I was unable to go anywhere which required me to walk for longer than 10 minutes.
On Tuesday I made a mistake of taking public transport to go to my doctor, and paid the price — my knee swell the same evening, and the rest of my joints seemed to give up on me as well and started aching altogether.
So, no, whatever hell I am going through right now has little to do with anxiety.
***
The worst part is not even the pain itself — it’s the not-knowing.
I am also a hypochondriac since forever, and with the gentle advise of Dr. Google, I am assuming the worst.
I will only see my doctor on Wednesday, which is when we will see the results of an MRI. Anti-inflammatory pills he has prescribed, do help a little with the pain in my back and the knee — but not with the rest of my joints, “pins and needles” in my limbs, inability to bend, and certainly not with the “anxiety.”
Before “this” happened, every time something worrisome took place, I went straight to the gym — as long as I had weights in my hand, I had control. I felt strong. Now I don’t even have that.
***
A few days earlier my best friend has announced her pregnancy. She is only two months pregnant, and that day sitting in the doctor’s office, I kept on thinking that I’d like her to be by my side — for the first time in my adult life I felt so terrified and helpless, that the idea of facing a doctor and whatever he had to say alone was unbearable.
But I could not ask her for that. A year ago when I went to cry on her shoulder after a bad break-up, she had cried with me. Now I was an immobilized piece of meat trembling in the doctor’s office, what kind of toll it could take on her — and her baby?
I told my other two friends about my current physical and emotional state — only because I had to cancel plans with both of them, on two separate days, and I did not feel like making up excuses when my entire world was crumbling before my eyes.
They were the ones who offered any help I need — which I rejected without giving it a second thought.
I can count on them in case I change my mind, but I honestly don’t see myself doing that. For the same reason, I’d feel bad if my mother has to come to do groceries for me. For the same reason, I don’t want to go back to my parents’ house — at least, not while I am in this state.
I don’t want to be a burden to anyone, and it has nothing to do with whatever dignity I have left.
The problem with caring for someone who suffers is that you now suffer with them.
And I can make my peace with the suffering — as long as it does not involve anyone else’ pain.
***
I also have to confess, that for the past few days I have been putting off any writing, well, because I felt horrible.
I still feel pretty awful and scared AF — but after massacring my paper journal and writing down my worries here… at least I feel as if something productive came out of this troubling experience I am having.
Hopefully, by the time I leave the doctor’s office on Wednesday, I will feel more optimistic.
And hopefully, I have no more MRI procedures in the foreseeable future.
