MRI at the MoMA

Yesterday we were at the surgeon candidate #1. Here I am before I am completely exhausted by information and the idea that I need to figure out what I want out of life. I wore my Jamie Kreitman (Magda's friend) bunny shirt that Mags gave me few years ago. It's got this big, soft, fluffy cottontail sewn on it. I thought I could fool the surgeon that this was my lump. She didn't go for it. I'm telling you, she's smarty-pants.

(Oh, and Magda, this is the first time wearing it in years. The bunny tail was dangling by a single thread after an outrageously crazy night at a gay dance club a few years ago. Apparently gay men cannot get enough of bunnies with diamond necklaces and white fluffy orbs and that little cotton ball was completely mangled and nearly ripped off by the end of the very long night. Dozens-- I mean dozens -- of guys yanked that thing. Just did my mending.) Anyway, I want to show some happy pics at the beginning of this process -- to remember when all this might take a turn for the rough and tumble.


Now for today. Here is my good friend Txell (pronouced "Che".) Txell is from Barcelona. She is beautiful and funny and a great storyteller (and single -- just throwing that out there). She is also a teacher and has the summer off. Txell offered to drive me to appointments. Today I broke down and asked her for a ride to my MRI and I am so glad. We had fun and she entertained me through my tiredness and annoyance with the medical system.

Look her, so good -- trying to acommodate my photo request while still keeping her eyes on the road!

Ok, now, here's more like it, I'm starting to get more patient-y looking, right? No bunny shirts allowed in the MRI today. The Super Nice Lady (I am meeting way too many people, I'm losing track of their names...) handed me and said, "Here's a pair of drawstring pants. And an obscenely large robe that should open from the front." She was not kidding. I felt like I was unpacking my tent for camping. It wrapped around me twice. SNLady added, "...and you need to take out any clips in that hair too." (I love "that" hair. HA!) I had to get down on the floor for this. I had six of them in my crazy hair. (Warning: SAD INTERLUDE. I am absolutely terrified of them telling me I need chemo, for many obvious reasons. My hair can be my nemesis. But who will I be if I lose it? Ok, not thinking about it because, again, I do not know yet so I won't worry about it yet...please go back to the light-hearted parts, Jenny... like:) Txell laughed hard and said, "You know, you look like a medical geisha right now." We giggled and giggled.


Long story short, they'd changed up my MRI time to later without telling me so now I am frantically trying to call Bastyr to let them know I will be late for my 3pm. This is how I function these days. My 3-ring binder of info is never farther then two feet from me at all times. Can you see my little black book? That's where I write down notes of what's said at every appointment. See the cover and the first two pages, they are already covered in taped-in business cards of all the people I need to see or have seen. I'm frantically trying to call but they are nicely trying to grab me to put the IV in. Che grabs the phone, tells me not to worry. After the MRI is over she tells me that the appointment will take a full hour, so we will miss it, and she rescheduled me for next Tuesday at 11am because she could tell from the business cards that I had an appt. that day at 1pm, giving me time to eat lunch and get there. I told her that she was just promoted after one day from chauffer to Personal Assistant. What do you do without friends? I don't understand.



The MRI Lady told me to undo my front and "lie on your stomach, put yer ladies in those cup holders, face goes there like when you get a massage, and put your arms over your head." I think I may call my boobs "my ladies" from now on. I've actually never heard that before.

I lie down, face down, ladies in position, big wad of cold medical equipment pressing into my gut and get ready to not move for 20 minutes. I ask her what if I have to sneeze? She says, "Welllllll... don't. I mean try not to, but if you do, it will all go bad and we'll have to do it all again." Ugh.

"Ok, here we go!" she says behind me and gives a big push. I open my eyes into the face-thing and I'm zooming forward and can see everything coming at me. I pretend I'm in the space shuttle and I'm launching. All of sudden she's on the other side, in front of me and waving. "Can you hear me?" I have earplugs in like I'm at a music show. "Isn't that mirror cool? It looks like you're driving this thing, right?" It is kind of cool. I'm physically looking down at the floor but the mirror makes you see straight ahead. I can see my hands in front of me (which I have in loose fists in an effort to keep them warm for 2o minutes) and everything going on at that end of the tube, didn't feel claustrophobic at all. She did say I could wiggle them (and only them) when my arms go to sleep, but I'm too afraid to mess this up.

Then the freaky loud sounds begin. I'm trying not to move so my breathing gets deep, and the more my breathing gets deep the more afraid of moving I'm getting so the breathing gets deeper and more I think I'm moving my body. On top of this I can feel the gunk that she said I probably wouldn't even notice start flooding my arm through the IV. It feels like someone is injecting cold Kool-Aid into my blood and it's going into my forearm and up past my elbow to my upper arm.

This is getting so mental and I do NOT want to do this again, I need to do something. So I stop pretending I'm with NASA and I start listening to all the crazy loud sounds. I now decide that I am at the MoMA, and I'm checking out a sound artist's experimental work. I ask myself questions like, "How does this art make you feel?" "What do you think the artist's intention was with this piece?" "Why do you think he chose the medium of sound?" Dozens of these funny art questions that I say to myself, but I use Laurie Anderson's voice, which soothes me. I guess I must have done this for most of the 20 minutes. I'm mulling over that this guy is like an 8-trick sound pony when I start hearing a man's voice saying very quickly over and over "singsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsingsing..." while in stereo right is a bass "wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah..." and like four other sounds go off and the whole thing is shaking a little more than ever. I decide I'm pulling this guy's NEA grant when MRI Lady says, "And that's it! It's all over!" I'm so happy. My arms are half asleep, I'm groggy from getting so relaxed and spaced out in the MRI MoMa, I climb off this thing and almost fall over, terrified of this stupid IV that is still jammed in my arm.

MRI Lady says, "So, guess what? We just took about 1300 photos of your breasts. I bet The Girls have never gotten so much attention before!" The Girls. I might put this woman in Txell's car and call this the best medical day ever. All I can say is, "Well, I guess you'll know them better than I ever will." We talk more as I get oriented and she's saying something about, "Yeah, well when I was in there for 45 minutes yesterday blah, blah, blah..." I have to interject, "Wait -- do you go in here for fun??" She laughs and says no, they were doing a test and "all they need is a warm body, and I'm like hell yeah I'll lie down anywhere for 45 minutes!"

I get dressed and Txell walks me down their Stanley Kubrick space age, curved, vaulted, lit neon white hallway*, gives me a big hug and we head home. I love my friends.

*I can see that part of this $4,000 (or something like that) MRI (of which I pay 30%!) must get converted into their interior decorating. Maybe.