The Burning of The Trees - My Journey Through A Myelogram

My husband held up the box of condoms. A questioning look in his eyes. I laid on the slab waiting for my CT Myelogram where dye is injected throughout my spinal cord. But there was that box of condoms.

Condoms are a good thing. They keep the unexpected from occurring. I snickered at the irony of their uselessness. A big red and white box of prophylactics. Next to my spine. Not that that's a bad thing. It was the context of their presence that was off.

When you go through something traumatic, the silliest things become a welcome reprieve. That moment of noticing a box of condoms in a room where they were about to inject my spine, became a kaleidoscope of visuals including little sperm taking a stroll up my epidural space, holding hands, then noticing they were lost. Searching endlessly for an egg. If they'd only had a condom, they wouldn't be in such a predicament.

Alas the Trojan horse was not for me to ride. The doctor had a much more invasive procedure in mind. An injection of dye from my skull through to my lumbar spine.

A CT Myelogram is usually done on one area at a time, but I was getting the Big Lebowski. The entire cord at once. Because my spine is a slacker just like The Dude. Only this time it wasn't drinking White Russians. It was tanking dye. And today I have one heck of a hangover, because all my head wants to do is hang.

The procedure begins with a puncture at the base of the skull just to the side of the spine. The area being injected is viewed under fluoroscopy, a real-time X-ray so the doctor can see exactly where the needle is, in correlation to the cord. Before the dye, they inject lidocaine to numb the area. I always wondered why they inject the skin to numb the area so they can inject the skin.

Imagine an air pump with a sloth expressing pressure into your spine. It begins with a burning at the base of the skull, then begins its journey into the cord. Your body alerted to the invasion.

The burning builds in the base of the neck and travels up the back of the head like a vice attempting to separate the sections of your skull. It realizes the skull won't give. Like a sulking teen it turns and begins its trek down the spine. A hiker tracking a bear no one else can see. The dye follows the cord into the nerves, lighting the forest like a fire exposing the blackness of deadened trees in the night.

I am asked to shift my head, to hold it up more as I lay on my stomach. My deltoids crack with lightening, my shoulders follow. A weep rises from within. A pup who cannot find its mum, searching for strength in the empty air around its nose. I am alone but for the doctor who gently places her hand on my forehead as tears drop in unison to shaking of my chin. The sheet below my face becomes wet. Protocol is lost. The line between doctor and patient dissolves and kindness steps in.

The dye has filled my spine. I am wheeled by gurney and transferred to the CT scan. I can barely open my eyes. What there is to see, no longer matters to me. I ache with disinterest and defeat. The CT goes by rather quickly. The numbers illuminate on its face, and I do not care about what they mean. The sounds are an airplane engine humming calm into my space. I have no mantra today.

The CT complete, it is time for the standing X-ray. Don is finally allowed to be with me. They hand him an apron. From next to the box of condoms. How I wish they had handed him the condoms. We are back in the room we started in. He puts on his radiation apron and pulls me gently from the wheelchair. I look into his eyes. Kindness. Again.

His arms under mine. My legs shake. Nausea overcomes. He holds a bowl underneath my chin that shakes. Again. I hear I love you. I stand for a side view. My hands wrap around the base of his neck so strong. We could be dancing if we weren't there. The technician shifts my hips for a better view. I am told not to breathe. I don't.

X-rays complete, it is time to leave. Don lowers me to my chair. Two hours passed like lightening. The box that made me smile catches my eye.

Today I recover before tomorrow's Facet Blocks. I cannot lift my head. But today's discomfort released me from this afternoon's root canal. And I smile. Again.

The pressure stays until my spine realizes it is ok to come out again. They will put me under for tomorrow's procedure. So I won't have to care. When it is over, Don will hold me still. His arms around my neck. Our eyes will meet and for that moment I will be reminded that life may not be fair, but it is more real than it has ever been. Even though we can't prevent the unexpected. When life is like a box of condoms, sitting on a shelf where it doesn't belong, just like me. There will always be Don's eyes from above my tears - offering hope that this will pass. The burning of the forest and the blackening of trees. Hope that one day soon I will care about what numbers mean. That I will hold onto the empty air around the burning of the trees. And believe that one day - all of this -will be what sets me free.

This Is Not Me - My Journey Through A Brain Scan

The tech rolled me up to the slab. A lamb for slaughter. At least that's what I thought it would be like. My last MRI's have not gone well. The pain from laying flat. The agony of being still.

I pulled my right leg off the wheelchair foot-holder and set it on the floor. The six-foot-five technician towered over me. The abominable snowman in a coat. He held his hand out for mine. I pulled my body up onto my right leg and shifted it closer to the MRI. My left leg hung as though it waited for a command - that never came. I gently pressed the palms of my hands on the slab and lifted my body to its cushion. My neck flared a fire inside its base, quelling my limbs into submission. That was the easy part. Now it was time to lay down on my back.

I laid flat. My lumbar spine contracted; A whip of my own tail reminding me to ask for the padded bolt under my knees. As soon as I was positioned properly, my body began to shake. It's a shiver reserved for cold medical rooms with naked walls. You have to stay completely still during an MRI. No cell phones, metallic bras or shivering allowed. I asked for blankets. Voila, blankets. He then attached the Hannibal Lector mask over my face. Odd isn't it, that a device that helps to determine the normalcy of one's brain, resembles that worn by a serial killer? I asked for an eye mask. A request that felt good when I said it out loud. Asking for an eye mask felt very spa-like to me. But knowing what to ask for made me feel empowered. And that is the key to surviving an MRI of the brain, or the neck, or anything that can stir the soul into a frenzy.

I was all set. Bolt under my knees. Blankets to keep me warm. No metal in my clothing (only in my spine). Earrings off. Eye mask on. Ear plugs in. Pads set between my skull and the Hannibal Lector mask. Panic button in hand. The coat left the room and the scans began.

The scan begins with a series of clicking sounds. Loud clicking sounds. Like gods snapping in unison with cars for fingertips. Rounds of eight snap-click-thuds measures surround your head. The machine is set. My body moves further into the cylinder.

The key, at this point, is to not look up. Not even into your eye mask. The peripheral vision will flip you out so fast it will make your head spin like the Exorcist on Good Friday - and Ralph's is out of pea soup.

The body is not meant to be canned in a metal body bag, with a cage around its face and an other-worldly symphonic discord of pots and pans in the ears. But, if you approach it properly, an MRI can become an almost Zen-like experience.

My brain was positioned in the middle of the tube, and the dirty-work began. The reading of my mind. The machine revved up, its engine scuffing its hooves into the dirt. A Trojan horse of answers to what has become a puzzle consisting only of outside edges. These scans will offer answers as to why I cannot hold up my head. Why my limbs are deteriorating. Why the numbness and tingling in my leg and arms is giving way to limp and weakened limbs. Why I can no longer brush my teeth without crying. Why my dog has licked so many tears that he now bloats. They are scanning my neck and my brain. My brain is being scanned to rule out any neurological disorder. The kind of disorder you discuss with your doctor that brings images of pity to your mind, and his. It is an interesting day when you pray that your neck is failing instead of your brain, because a neck is easier to fix. So these scans are a horse worth saddling. And I endure.

As the machine readies to scan, I breathe deeply and exhale. Each scan is fifteen to twenty minutes and you cannot itch your nose, swallow too hard, and God forbid you sneeze. There must be complete and total stillness - or you will have a crooked brain. Or neck. Or worse, a blurry brain. Or neck.

As the clicks and snaps repeat in beats of eight, I imagine a mantra to its notes. "I will be healed, I see the light. I will be healed, I see the light." Then, "This is not me, I will be free. This is not me, I will be free." Suddenly, the area between my face and the metal coffin expands and fills with open space. Puzzled pieces fall from the sky into an abyss of hope. I look into my eyelids and see orbs of white lights dancing and floating to the rhythm of this newfound song. I imagine the top of my head as an open vessel with light pouring in and throughout my brain. I feel the energy of the scan awakening a part of my self I never knew was there. It was an engagement with the power of thought I had taken for granted before someone locked us up in a room together - with no one to interrupt but ourselves.

I felt my mind open. I heard my thoughts forgive. I could see how strong my brain is, and how alive she was through the orbs inside my eyes. She became a messenger with a note only I could read.

The clicking grew, the primal beating of a heart within roared with a knowing it would all be okay in the end. "This is not me, I will be free." An odd thing to say to one's self when strapped inside a machine.

 It is up to me now to guide my self through this valley of eye masks and snapping cars. To take the reigns and order the orbs to dance in the darkness before my eyes. It is up to me, to help my mind see what it finds difficult to believe; This is not me, I will be free.

The session ends. The slab pulls out. The abominable man holds out his hand. The mask comes off, my legs drape down. The chair comes back and I am ready now, to hold forever in my mind the memory of what I saw. A self so strong it can't be seen. I'm rolled through the door where my husband stands. Now we wait as it's in God's hands. Like a light you can touch because it is all you can know in a darkness where I met a magical mantra of my self: This is not me, I will be free.