Question: How many MRIs does it take a claustrophobe to relax?
Answer: When Brandon, the wonderful (re: tolerant) MRI tech asked I told him I’ve lost count. Nothing like tunnelling, sleeping, and freaking out at times through two bouts of cancer, plus having some greater risk of other cancers, to make that too many MRIs, Catscans, X-rays, blood tests, and other cancer wellness (as in, “if we find nothing, all is well”) to count.
Today was my annual MRI to make sure there’s no tiny pancreatic cancer cells hovering around the corner. While I’ve never had this cancer, it’s what killed my father and uncle, and it can also be tied to being BRCA1 positive (which I am, meaning I have a breast cancer genetic mutation). This MRI cross-bred with my quarterly scans to ensure I have nothing from the eye cancer I had traveling to other parts of the body.
As someone who used to be terrified of lots of scans, especially MRIs and anything where I’ve sent into a tube (I once visited the underworld during a Petscan), these are a deal for me, or at least they used to be. I’ve needed heavy sedation on a cocktail of you-are-somewhere-far-far-away drugs numerous times. Even then, according to my good friend Judy who once sang me Jewish prayers and Buddhist chants during one, I still kicked my legs wildly the whole time.
But when faced with the reality of many more scans in what I hope is a long and healthy life, I’ve been working on giving up my panic and dread. For the last few years, I’ve talked with my therapist about exposure therapy and how my life is giving me this in bundles when it comes to scans. What also helps is Enya.
I had almost forgotten how much I loved Enya’s music in bygone eras, but a few years ago, I was given the choice of listening to her or the Beatles during an MRI, and I chose Enya. It turns out that Enya provides the perfect antidote to the patterns of sonic booms and yelps sounding through me, which altogether feel like having my body energetically probed by some benevolent extraterrestrials.
Enya’s soaring harmonies and bell-clear voice winding around me during an MRI cradles me in an angelic choir, even as the machine loudly bellows and chimes its surveying of my torso. I listen to Enya as well as the machine’s pre-recorded female voice telling me to hold my breath for various intervals of 11-20 seconds, then breathe normally.
This MRI and my one last October were actually, unbelievably, pleasant. With my head on a pillow, my arms above my head resting on that pillow, and the slate I was on going in and out of the Easy Bake oven of the machine, I felt calm, at times almost happy, and so greatly relieved that I could do this without snapping into too-far-down-the-tracks-to-stop fight or flight mode. I also fantasized about exactly what I would order for breakfast at Wheatfields, where we go after each MRI, and how good that French toast and bacon would taste. And it helped having Ken there, breathing with me.
Back home after many hours in and around the hospital waiting for the good news that yes, all was clear and this was another Well Caryn visit after all, I watched the early evening sky brighten in the west while in the east, the dark clouds acted if they were holding a rainbow somewhere. I ran into the house and got Ken, a champion rainbow-whisperer, then we walked through the field south of our house rainbow-hunting until we found it, brightening over the 10 minutes we searched and even doubling.
It was only half a visible rainbow, but I’ll take that, and all the Enya music that comes my way with gratitude. I’ll even take the MRI, an adventure I would never have signed up for in advance but one that helps me relax in small spaces filled with sound, motion, and the wonders of medical technology that can save our lives.
