The MRI Experience ... Part Two: After

LOUD.

I said, !!!LOUD!!!

Can't say I wasn't warned, but I'm still surprised. The last time I was subjected to NOISE like that, I was about 19 and it was a Honda 1100RC racing bike with the throttle wound wide open, shrieking in the concrete cauldron of a workshop in Adelaide's CBD.

See Part One of this little tale to know what I'm talking about. Namely, an MRI machine --

"Dangitall, Ash, they sure make these medical scanners quiet these days."
"Yes, Captain; you should have heard them back in 2016." 

If you were hoping for something out of Star Trek, with Doctors Crusher and McCoy quietly ministering to you, you'd be somewhat ... disappointed. Why do you have to strip literally naked to get your HEAD scanned? Why are you taking off clothing that has no single trace of metal anywhere in/on it? Why is the "robe" they provide you with so tiny, it's barely adequate, necessitating one to parade in semi-public corridors, strutting stuff one would never strut in ten squillion years elsewhere? Why is a physically challenged 57 year old female required to limp around this way in the company of some form of technician who is male and 20 years old at a long stretch of the imagination, and who apparently doesn't know where to look?

So -- to misquote Queen Victoria, we are unimpressed by the process, even before we talk about the scan.

The machine is huge, white, and quarantined in a special room. You lie on a rolling board with your knees on a pillow; they trundle you into the gismo -- then the two women who operate the thing run away, so they don't have to listen to it. Just as an x-ray machine is situated in a radiation-proof room,  an MRI machine is situated in a SOUND PROOF ROOM. They give you "industrial grade" ear pads before they take to their heels and flee; and in your hand is what I can only describe as a "chicken switch," in case some poor person panics so badly they have to stop.

It rings. It knocks. Whines. Buzzes. Whirrs. Bangs. Clatters. For fifteen minutes or so, I believe, and the volume is utterly overwhelming. Not everyone is noise-sensitive, like myself. If you're partially deaf because your favorite hangout is a club at 2:00am where you can't hear yourself think, you'd probably get through this with a grin; and if you're a beach bunny, strutting your stuff and flashing those gorgeous bare legs of yours in the little robe would be a source of great joy. If you're neither of those critters ... MRI is a chore, even though it's not invasive (so long as they're not injecting you with radioactive dyes).

Bottom line: it's not invasive, just colossally aggravating. Be prepared. You're not doing this for fun, so ... what the hey?

Now we wait till next week to get the results. Such fun. (Here they are -- just posted, with pictures of the cauliflower the aliens left in my skull some time ago when they made off with my brain... Luckier than Spock, I guess; they didn't even leave him the cauliflower.)

When is somebody going to invent a medical tricorder that they point at you from across the room, and you get instant results QUIETLY.

It's dead, Jim ... whatever it is. And it's QUIET. Like this gizmo of mine.