Clang-clang-bwang-blang-clang

MRI this morning. My new Lyme doc is looking for pituitary tumors, which would explain my hormonal instability, and I assume he is looking for infections as well. I thought it would better not to know a whole lot about what he is looking for, so I could focus my anxiety on the procedure instead of the results.


I used to be able to handle stress very well. In fact, I liked stress. I liked writing for deadlines, speaking in front of large groups of people without notes, whitewater canoeing, jumping horses. But now? Lying down on the sliding gurney with a washcloth over my eyes was enough to send my heart racing, put a cold sweat on my palms, and make me short of breath. Nothing about it hurts or is uncomfortable. But having to stay completely still for 45 minutes, flat on my back -- the idea of that seemed physically impossible, at least to my pituitary.


I took a moment to pull myself together, told myself that I was able to breathe even though my adrenals were screaming YOU ARE SUFFOCATING! and got through it.


I'll say this. It is inexpressibly better being a person who can handle stress than one who cannot. It changes the entire experience of being in the world. It makes living anywhere close to the present moment nearly impossible, except for the moments that are comfortably under a soft quilt, with a full belly, and nothing on the schedule. One of the worst parts of it is that the anxiety-prone are misunderstood by everyone who is not. There is no way for them to to get it. Which of course, in a situation like an MRI where you feel at the mercy of the machine and the tech, kicks the anxiety up a notch or two.


Before being slid into the tube, I asked the tech how long it would take, and if the pictures were of brain structures and not activity. I asked because I was planning to meditate, which would affect activity. He said, "Oh, your MRI is looking at structures only. There is another kind but you aren't having that one." But then he added, "Don't worry, I won't be able to see your thoughts!"


Honestly. I know I was on the brink of a panic attack, but I did not quit school after kindergarten. In my trips to the hospital lately, that is how people talk to me, often in sing-song voices, as though English is not my first language or even my second. There is an unstated assumption expressed in all communications that I couldn't possibly understand what is going on. It's past noon, I'm only able to drink and not eat today in preparation for tomorrow's colonoscopy, so yes, I am cranky. I'm handling condescension as badly as stress. 


The clanging of the magnets made meditation impossible, but oddly I found the noise a little comforting. It was so loud I couldn't really think of anything else, so I just counted clangs and bangs and the numbers were soothing even though doubtless I was miscounting as I went along, like a kindergartener, although I did not think "eleventeen" at any point.