The Psychological Torture of an MRI
My doctor told me I needed an MRI to determine if I had a torn patellar tendon after his previously prescribed treatment didn’t cure my knee pain. I thought, “It’s just an MRI. It’ll be a quick in-and-out thing.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. An MRI is a unique form of psychological torture that, in my opinion, should be used both as a medical tool and an interrogation technique.
After checking in at 11:55 for my 12pm appointment, I waited 40 minutes without being called in. I walked up to the desk to see where I was in “line.” I say “line” because the waiting room had just three other people in it besides me. The receptionist was (understandably) surprised I hadn’t been called in yet: “Oh. You’re still here? Hmm…it looks like your appointment is actually for 12:30. They should be calling you in any minute now.”
The subtle torture had begun.
I knew I made my appointment for 12. It was in my phone calendar and it was in my confirmation email from the office. They were playing mind games with me, trying to introduce doubt into my mind, but I saw right through them.
“Mr. Ruby?,” I finally heard after nearly an hour of sweating out booze and scrolling through Twitter in the pseudo-comfortable waiting room. “I’m Fred! I’ll be doing your MRI today.”
Fucking Fred. He seemed friendly at first, but he was the grand torture master. He quickly ushered me through a labyrinth of doors and hallways into a narrow, dimly lit SECOND waiting room with just enough closed doors lining the walls to be confusing. Directing me into a tiny, even dimmer room, he said, “Change into these shorts and lock your stuff in there.” “There” was an extremely out of place upscale gym locker — the ones with a keypad that I can never get to work.
Fred left and I slowly got my bearings, assessing my surroundings. As I turned around in the changing room, my elbows scraped against the wall. There was barely enough room for me, at 5'9" and 150 pounds, to change. I can’t imagine a larger prisoner/patient having to disrobe in there.
Once I got down to my skivvies, I turned my attention to the pair of shorts Fred had laid out for me. Navy blue, woven from some form of disposable table cloth material, and size XL?! Another psychological test, this time from Fred. He couldn’t possibly think that was the appropriate size for me. It took a lot, but once again, I saw right through him.
Getting the shorts on was a critical thinking exercise in and of itself. There was no discernible front or back to the shorts. Even the label was directly on one of the side seams! I took my best guess and pulled them on, and even then I had no idea which side was the front. There was space for my ass where my ass was, but there was also a strange, ass-shaped bump in the shorts protruding from my crotch in front.
After trying the shorts on two more times, I settled on what I thought was the best way to wear them and popped out into the auxiliary waiting room. There was no clock there, and my phone was locked in the locker, so I had no idea how much time had passed since Fred first threw me into that changing room. Had it been minutes? Hours? Days?
Fortunately there was a stack of magazines there, so I could do some reading while I waited. My relief was short lived, however, as I soon discovered all 29 magazines in the stack were from 2016. I settled into one of the extremely uncomfortable chairs with the March 2016 issue of Vogue to read the hard-hitting cover story, “Adele Had Us Long Before ‘Hello.’” As I pored over every word of Adele’s “fame, family, and fabulous frocks,” I scarcely noticed the numerous medical professionals popping in and out of each of the seven doors in the waiting room. Some of them ignored me altogether, some gave me a funny look, and one even puzzlingly asked, “How are you?” Unsure if I was hearing/seeing things at this point, I didn’t respond.
After another indeterminate period of time, Fred finally popped his head out of the biggest door in the room and called me in. As I stepped through the door from the low-lit hallway — with barely enough light to read about how Adele manages to be a full-time mom and a full-time pop star — to the stark-white, fluorescent-lit MRI chamber, I was nearly blinded. Fred, not wanting me to observe my surroundings, immediately told me to take my glasses off and set them on a table by the door. From there he led me to the MRI machine, where I laid down on the table-bed he’d prepared for me. As he secured my knees in separate plastic tubes, my eyes adjusted to the light, but without my glasses I couldn’t make out much.
I had my arms above my head, so Fred told me, “Don’t sit like that. You’ll fall asleep and move your leg.” Up until then I’d forgotten why I was even there, just eager to make my escape. It made sense so I dropped my arms down by my sides. Then Fred produced two highlighter yellow earplugs and jammed them into my face, saying, “Here. The machine gets really loud.” Again, it made sense so I took the earplugs. His fingernails were extremely dirty for an MRI tech — he must either garden in his spare time or bury the hospital’s bodies out back.
After I got the earplugs secured into my ears, Fred decided it was a good time to explain the progression of images he was going to take: three 30 second images and five 3 minute images. At least that’s what I thought he said, but he sounded like I was underwater with the earplugs in my ears, so who knows what he actually said. Before he left the room, he added, “You can sleep if you want. Just don’t move,” after telling me not to fall asleep less than 30 seconds earlier. Then he left me in a confused, speechless daze only to reappear behind the window of the control room. He got on the intercom to re-explain all of the pictures he was going to take, then moved me into the tiny MRI tube. Before we started, Fred announced, “First one, 30 seconds.”
30 seconds never felt so long. Fred had told me the whole procedure would take 20 minutes. It sounded like a breeze initially, but I quickly realized it would take every ounce of my mental fortitude to stay still and sane throughout the MRI.
He wasn’t kidding about the machine being loud. Even with the earplugs it vibrated every fiber of my skull and the mushy brain within it. The machine’s pulsing hum sounded like some new, modern form of trance EDM found only in ketamine-fueled Bushwick warehouse raves. With its monotonous, pulsing rhythm pounding away for 15 seconds only to pause for a second before resuming at a totally different pitch, I struggled throughout the MRI not to move my body to the beat of the machine at any point.
After 30 seconds of eternity, we moved on to the first three minute shot. My mind was racing, and my thoughts ranged from primal (“I’m hungry. Can’t wait to inhale a bagel and lox after this.”) to existential (“Am I fulfilling my purpose in life, or just aimlessly wasting away?). By the end of the three minutes, I had aged three years. During the next three minute shot, I struggled to discern if my legs were both asleep or if I was just imagining it. Having to sit still for 20 minutes with nothing to do but think has a bad acid trip-like effect on the brain. I eventually plummeted Splash Mountain-style into an anxiety-fueled nightmare deep within my own psyche. Between thoughts of my inability to support a family and wondering if I’d ever live up to my potential, I actually lost track of time. Next thing I knew, Fred was pulling me out of the MRI torture chamber and telling me how great of a job I did sitting still.
As I made my way out of the MRI room back to the dimly lit hallway, I felt like a patient recently released from the psych ward slowing coming to grips with reality. I changed back into my street clothes and slowly navigated my way back out to the lobby and onto the street, certain of but one thing: next time my doctor tells me I need an MRI, I’ll just tell him to assume the worst and move on to surgery. Anything to avoid what I’d just been through.
