MRI

I am finally feeling well enough to write about my MRI experience this past Thursday. What a way to celebrate Bobby Weir's birthday! OK, so Weir had absolutely nothing to do with this but it is strange, the things you remember when you are freaking out.

It was an "Open" MRI as opposed to the cigar tube thing, but I was still terrified of it (even though I have been through MRIs before, as well as the PET and CT scanners) - especially when they brought out this weird plastic mask (sort of like a fencing/hockey/catcher's mask), put it over my face and BOLTED it to the bed of the machine. Thank God one thing about me that works is my heart or I would have had an attack right then and there. And the mask had a very large, open grid, so I could reach out and touch my face or breathe or whatever. I went through my speech about Marsha Gatto's uncle, Dr. Albert Overhauser, being the person who developed the theory that led to MRI (and earned him the National Science Medal in physics) and how the effect was called the "Overhauser effect" and the opposite effect, obviously, the "Underhauser effect." I guess the techs decided they had enough info and wheeled me into the machine, seemingly unimpressed with my tenuous connection to their technology.

It was sort of like being inside an egg during sound check - I kept hearing the kick drum and the low G on an electric bass, arguing with each other over and over. I started thinking about what David said the other night and silently chanted "Michelle McFee. Healthy. Now." I ran the phrase through my head the suggested 21 times and felt a little better after that. And I replayed in my mind a telephone conversation I had with a good friend a couple of nights before that and the memory of that conversation and what was said got me through the scan with my sanity in tact!

Early Friday afternoon, Dr. Engel called with the results of the MRI. As shown on the PET scan, the tumors are at the bridge of my nose and there is one tumor in one lymph node in my neck. The bump near my eye did not show as tumor so it is probably a little pimple (OH PRAY for that to be the case!). Dr. Engel also said he has not yet heard back from MD Anderson but hopes to have a referral for me on Monday.

And I finally scored an appointment with Dr. Kathleen Grant, apparently the most popular oncologist in San Francisco. I see her November 5 unless there is a cancellation before then.

Still no word from Social Security on the Medicare issue. Damn! I know it will all be resolved but sooner rather than later works for me - this is cancer, for God's sake, not an ingrown toenail.