The Two Kinds of Decay

Tests

First you’ll feel a tiny sting where the needle goes into the lumbar spine, then a small burn when the anesthetic is pushed into the tissue, then a bit of pressure when the second needle goes in, and then nothing. You’ll just lie there on your side, fetal, and if an intern or a student gets to do the puncture, you’ll hear everyone congratulate the intern or the student once the fluid is in the test tube. And if you ask to see your spinal fluid, someone will hold up a test tube of perfectly clear fluid.

And then everyone’s happy and you’ll just lie flat awhile until there’s no risk you’ll get the notorious spinal-tap headache if you move.

You can rest knowing it will be days before you’ll hear whether the fluid contains a high protein content yet a normal cell count, the combination of which indicates severe nerve damage.

These days, hospitals have open MRI machines, but my hospital had only the closed kind. If you needed an MRI taken of the top of your neck, you were slid all the way inside the machine.

Once you’re inside, it’s hard not to notice that the wall of the hollow tube is no more than six inches away from your body at any point.

My muscles were atrophied when I had my MRIs, and I was very thin. If the walls had been only six inches away from my body, a larger person wouldn’t have been able to fit into the machine. So this memory must not be right.

But the point is that once you’re inside, if you have any imagination at all, you feel as if you have been buried alive in a white plastic coffin.

This is why MRI technicians offer a slight sedative before the procedure, and why they say to keep your eyes shut and imagine that the thudding sounds of the machine are waves crashing on a beach, and why they speak to you throughout the test, asking how you’re feeling and declaring that you’re doing well, and why they place a panic button in your right hand. If you press it at any point, they slide you right out of the tube.

If you think you might open your eyes inside the tube, ask for a washcloth to be laid over your eyes. It will work as a blindfold, even if you open your eyes underneath it, and since you’re in a coffin, you can’t move your arms or any other part of your body to touch the blindfold, and you will not be afraid.