Lie Back and Think of England . . . Or Show Choir: In Which We Learn How to Survive An MRI
If my alarm goes off before 7am, there must be a damn good reason for it, preferably one that has something to do with traveling somewhere fun to eat wonderful things. In the case of last Tuesday, I rose at 6:08 to travel five miles across town for a brain MRI. Hardly fun or wonderful but a necessary twice-a-year ritual thanks to my current disease modifier, Tysabri . Tuesday's was my thirteenth MRI since 2010! (Hat tip to Google Calendar for that statistic.) I bet if you added up all of my MRIs since 2004, you'd find that I had logged a full day in the tube. It isn't quite enough to fulfill Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, but I daresay I'm pretty good at it. MRIs begin with extensive questionnaires about the metal in your body. It is wise to take these questions seriously, because the M stands for Magnet(ic) -- and you do *not* want to forget to mention (and remove!) a nipple ring before encountering a super strong magnet. (I was once in the waiting room w