Life is Sailing

(written Monday, August 25, 2025)

Setting: a hospital in Maryland.

I was given a gown and told to leave all my belongings (purse, rings, jewelry) in an open box that would be watched in an empty room. After being asked if I needed anesthesia (which I declined), I was taken to the MRI room, a large round machine situated in the middle.

“No, there is no music.” Their speakers hadn’t worked for quite a while.

I was placed in a very uncomfortable position with my painful left thumb propped up for imaging. Lying on my belly, covered with a blanket, I stared awkwardly ahead into the sterile tube. The table slid me forward into the machine. Without anymore explanation than “You’ll hear some knocking noise for the next few minutes until the images are done,” and “Here’s the button if you need to stop,” the young radiology technician exited the room.

What happened next was no mere knocking noise. It was heart-pounding, loud, repetitive but erratic, rat-a-tat-tat! I had not been warned to bring earplugs! Those definitely would have helped! So many times in the subsequent minutes I came close to pushing the quit button. However I needed that imaging, and I did not want to experience this again. Every fiber in my being wanted out of there. I felt angry at the techs and at the hospital for the lack of training these guys appeared to have received. You don’t just stick someone in a tube with noises like that with no idea of how long it has been or how much time is left and nothing to do! That is torture, and it is wrong. I cried motionless tears, for I dared not move a muscle near my hand. I tapped my foot, rolling it around the way I do to get through blood draws. I began counting aloud, slowly from 1 to 100 and then backwards down to 1. I sang hymns and folk songs quietly to myself.

If I remember correctly, the whole thing took 45 minutes. And then suddenly it stopped. There was no communication during the process, just me and my thoughts and the awful “knocking” (hammering). As the table pulled me back to sanity, I wanted to jump out of my skin. I was so on edge.

“You did really well,” the tech said.

No thanks to you!, I thought in my head. “Do you ever have people that experience panic attacks in there?” I asked.

“All the time,” he shared convincingly.

Well, of course they do! How could they do that to people and not change something???

Another day, I had quite the opposite experience at a different radiology clinic, this one a civilian imaging diagnostic center. At least it’s not always such torture, however uncomfortable.