I am clearly not the most mature person in the world because I initially found my breast MRI rather hilarious.   For the record, the MRI and Mammogram came back clear- so I can stay on my clinical trial until its completion and the surgery will be set for the beginning of July and I won’t have to see any more doctors on that front until late March or early April.  But this MRI  is really one of the most awkwardly funny things I have ever undergone.  And trust me- I’ve had tests from my top to my toes and every private bit in between.

For those of you who have yet have the pleasure of a breast MRI, allow me to explain.  Unlike a mammogram where you stand up and they adjust the boob smasher to fit you for imaging- and seriously- they flatten those suckers out to the point where I am pleasantly surprised when they regain their natural appearance- but with an MRI you lay face down on the machine in which there are two large cut out squares where your boobs hang through.  Just try placing these pendulous masses into the squares and not immediately breaking into “do your boobs hang low, do they wobble to and fro:, etc..”.  But as I was at the very classy women’s imaging center at UCLA, I thought it unwise to be a smart ass.  Now- the not so nice part of this MRI- and again, keep in mind, I am VERY comfortable in an MRI machine.  I have a minimum of one per year to track my MS progression and while undergoing the Estriol clinical trial I have been having them as often as  every three months- so I’m all good with the banging, siren blaring, enclosed tube of torture.  I usually fall asleep after an initial period of anxiety which I get through by imagining Santiago laughing hysterically at something.  It works like a charm.

But there was something about the body position on this MRI and the fact that to keep my arms in place, the technician strapped them in, so it was rather like laying face down in a straitjacket that had cutouts for my boobs.  I could also feel my breath quicken as I was lying on my stomach and so each inhale raised my body away from the table slightly.  I was anxious in a way that is unusual for me and of course, being who I am, I analyzed the hell out of it once I left the doctor’s office.  Over the week that followed, there were numerous events that skirted around the periphery of the upcoming surgeries, and I allowed each thing to make me more and more anxious.   The MRI- which seemed like a funny story to tell, settled in as the first of a long line of things that made me uneasy.

And here’s what I came to.  I am not comfortable being afraid or being perceived as fearful or trepidatious when it comes to medical tests- or anything medical for that matter.  I want everyone to look at me and say, “wow- she’s so tough and none of this seems to phase her and isn’t she superwoman?”  Most of all, I want to believe it of myself.  But I get to the end of a week like this one that began with the bondage MRI and will end with setting dates to sign consents, choosing who holds my power of attorney and  figuring out my will and I think that the title of superwoman is something I might have achieved once upon a time, but for now I’m just going to have to settle with anxious lady with less than average resolve.

And suddenly I feel relief.  The guard slips a bit, I tell my friend Rachel  that I’m afraid- that this might complicate my MS in an irreversible way, and that the idea of menopause at 40 totally blows because my doctor said I might find I don’t have the same sex drive- and sorry mom and dad who are reading this- but that happens to be something of which I am a HUGE fan.  And once I say it out loud- pass it on to someone who will love me even if all of these things are true- it makes it less potent, less painful.  Less of the whole truth and more just another side of all of the aspects that come into play with something of this magnitude.  So I post this because sometimes I have to admit that it’s not a walk in the park, so that someone reading this who is dealing with the same thing doesn’t feel like they have to be superwoman, so I don’t have to be superwoman and instead I can ask for a cup of tea, a kiss on the forehead and a reminder that it’s okay to not always find the humor in a shitty situation.  But come on- how can one not giggle at “do your boobs hang low?”