"Do I have to go in head first? The last one I had, I went in feet first, and I was less freaked out."

I was in a knee-length gown, staring at the small hole of the MRI tube.

The tech, a middle-aged graying man, smiled and said, "I have something for you that will help."

"Oh, well . . . normally, I wouldn't mind taking something, but I don't really feel like being out of it the rest of the day today. Things to do, you know? I . . . "

The man didn't reply. He walked over to a counter and came back with something in his hand. I began flipping through a mental rolodex of what he might be about to give me. Some kind of injection? A pill? . . . Some smoke? The man had big round glasses and a crazy gray afro which was flattened and combed back, so that it created a sort of quasi-mullet. Part Einstein, part 70's funk. It wasn't hard for me to visualize him producing a partially-smoked spliff right there, lighting it up, and while holding in a deep breath saying in a strained voice, "It makes the time go faster, man."

Instead he showed me two ear plugs and a strange-looking pair of glasses. The glasses were strange because they had mirrors directly in front of the lenses. The idea, he explained, was to angle the mirrors in such a way so that instead of looking directly up at the wall of the MRI tube, you could view this peaceful landscape of a lake and some trees, and these pink flowers that looked like cherry blossoms. Sort of like blinders that horses wear, only with mirrors. (And no smoke.) Of course the irony was that I had to take my prescription glasses off. They had metal screws in them, and metal isn't something that's good to take into an MRI tube, what with the huge magnets and all. So, without my prescription glasses, the landscape was simply a large splotch of blue, green, and pink. Still, it proved nicer to look at then the inside of the tube.

I inserted the foamy, florescent green earplugs into each canal. Then I donned the mirrored eyewear, and 'Albert' (I'll call him Albert because of the hair) slid the table into the machine. He had given me a rubber squeeze ball, which was attached to a long rubber tube. As the table slid inside he told me I could squeeze the ball if I began to panic.

"Okay," I said. I felt the ball in my sweaty hand. Ridiculous. MRI's are probably the least harmful test you can get. No radiation. No injections (most of the time; however, it turns out I needed an injection of some 'contrast' to make the results easier to read and to help differentiate the scar tissue of my prior back surgery, from a a disc bulge - scar tissue does not circulate blood, but discs do.) Anyway, aside from the injection, which really didn't bother me, MRI's are easy as cake. And yet, they tend to freak people out. It's the enclosed space that does it. Claustrophobia. You never fully understand this condition until you find yourself waist deep in it. And it's quick to suck you the rest of the way in if you're not careful - like quicksand. I've had a total of four MRI's now - one when I was 15, another in my early twenties, and the last two in the last year. The first one was no problem. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect to be scared. So I wasn't. But something happened between the age of 15 and 23. The main thing was this: I got bigger. And being in a small tube was less appealing to my larger self, and evidently less tolerable. I didn't lose it altogether during that second MRI, but I came pretty close. If they had taken my heart rate it might have read just below "pissing in my pants." The third one - back in March of this year - was the one where I went feet first, and I barely went inside the tube at all. That was by far the best. Which brings us to number four.

Albert paused the sliding platform. "You ok?" He asked. It was nice of him to be concerned. The peaceful blotches of color at the far end of the tube were coming into stronger focus. "Fine!" I said. I wasn't exactly fine. I was holding back the urge to freak out. But the glasses were definitely helping. My heart rate was going up, I could tell, but I still felt in control. I concentrated on the blotchy photo and tried to think pleasant thoughts. I thought about jet-skiing, which I haven't done since I was 13 or 14, but I liked thinking of going fast in a wide-open space. I breathed in. Out. My body relaxed.

Then the actual scans began. This is where the earplugs proved useful. It was the first time I had been given earplugs and I thought it was a thoughtful touch. MRI machines make a huge racket, like a jack-hammer. Sometimes the noise is fast and chaotic. Sometimes it's more rhythmic, where you can actually distinguish certain beats, certain strange syncopations. But either way, they are always loud. The beats go on for the entire length of a scan, and each scan lasts about 5 or 6 minutes and during that time, there is a deafening pounding noise all around you. This might be the other reason people tend to panic. Not only are you in a small enclosed space, but by all indications, your natural instincts are telling you that the Armageddon has indeed arrived.

I found that I liked the more rhythmic scans over the chaotic ones. They were soothing because I could just close my eyes and concentrate on the beat. And I made an interesting discovery: I naturally think in triplets. Yes, the triplet is definitely my favorite rhythmic sequence. During one particularly entertaining scan, the machine knocked out a series of 3 triplets (at least that's how they sounded to me) in one tone and 3 triplets in a slightly deeper tone. So it went di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da over and over and over again. Sounds like torture, right? But strangely, as focused on counting out the repetitions, I became more relaxed, if by 'relaxed' you mean, 'not entirely jittery.'

Towards the end of the test, the mirrors on my modified glasses were beginning to fall perpendicular to the lenses, which means that I was beginning to see more and more of my own eyeballs reflected in them. I had to look to the very top of the mirrors to see the tranquil landscape, and even then I could only see the bottom half. Luckily, they never fell completely, and breathed a relieved sigh when I heard Albert enter the room.

He slid the table out. My limbs, which I had tried to keep as still as possible were asleep. I rolled off the table and felt the familiar pain in my right leg and foot. Stabbing. Annoying. The magnets hadn't mysteriously cured me. Oh well.

"The glasses worked great!" I told him.

He nodded. "They usually do."

On the walk home, I didn't need my iPod. I was still groovin' to the beat of the tube. di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da

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