MRI Really Stands For Morbid Resonating Images

I thought of this post as I was becoming very claustrophobic, laying in an MRI machine.

If you've never been in an MRI machine, let me share with you my experience.

First off, they make you take off anything remotely metallic - watches, rings, belts, etc.

Then you enter the MRI room, where you lay on a stretcher looking thing. They put a helmet that looks like it came from the set of Battlestar Galactica over your head, tell you to relax (yeah, right), give you some earplugs (the noise inside the machine is deafening), and then push you and the stretcher thing into the machine. When you enter the MRI machine, you are seriously an inch from the "ceiling". (I just close my eyes, practice some breathing techniques, and try not to think, "What happens if terrorists take over this building and no one knows I'm in here?") Then you hear a bunch of strange knocking type sounds, and then a constant deafening alarm sound.

Halfway through the procedure, at least in my case, they pull you out of the machine and inject you with a contrast agent that lights you up inside. When it enters your body, it feels really cold, and then there is a metallic taste in your mouth. Actually, this time, I felt nauseous, which I haven't since the first time I had an MRI (ten years ago). Then there is more banging, more noises, and then you're done.

It's old hat for me - I have to have an MRI every year. When I was 23, I started experiencing headaches, dehabilitating at times. I went to see a neurologist in November of 1993, and through a series of tests, CAT scans, and MRI scans, they finally told me on a Thursday in January of 1994 that I had a brain tumor, that they didn't know if it was malignant or benign, and that they had to do a biopsy the following Monday.

I had a weekend to prepare myself for possibly dying.

Talk about a crazy weekend.

We might all say as Christians that we are ready to die, that we don't fear death, but I think that's a load of bunk. I was, and still am, afraid of death. That entire weekend, death was all I thought about. I called some friends, I wrote out a will, and I prepared myself the best I could, but I was terrified. What was it going to be like? Would I survive? How would my family cope? Why did this have to happen before I got married and had kids? Was it better to die before I got married and had kids?

I survived. When they went in my head to do a biopsy, they discovered that it was benign, and so they extracted the tumor. I woke up, spent a couple of days in ICU, spent another week in the hospital, stayed a month with a church family while I recuperated, took my anti-seizure medicine (you have to take that kind of medicine whenever you operate on the brain), and things slowly turned back to normal.

Until two months later. When I started having headaches again. And more tests. And the doctor realizing that the tumor grew back again, although this time it was larger.

So the process began again - I had the surgery at the beginning of June, stayed in the hospital for a week, recuperated for a month in an apartment, and life turned back to normal again. Supposedly they got it all out this time.

But everytime I go to get my yearly MRI, the fears come back. What if they find something? What if they have to operate right away? Now I have a wife. Now I have a daughter. What if I die? What if something goes wrong? Have I provided well for my family? Do I need to write out another will?

And so, the fear of death continues. Although I am comforted by the words of Leonard Sweet:

"How long our genetic whirlpool will allow all these cells to talk to each other and work together is anyone's guess and God's surprise. But one day a particular system will break down. One day an organism will lose the struggle against a competing organism. Disease has functions as well as causes - the germ wins, the body dies.

For the disciple of Jesus, death has meaning for the body but not for the soul. The soul lives forever. We shall never die. 'Death, that old snakeskin,' writes poet Irene Zimmerman, 'lies discarded at the garden gate.'

So, what is death like? The best answer I've ever encountered came via popular culture. When a dying character in a popular TV show (I think it was Seventh Heaven) asked someone what death was like, that person gave a reply that keeps ringing doorbells to eternity in every cell of my body, mind and spirit.The respondent said death is like when you're a child and you get sick and feverish. You go to bed at night sweating, shivering, feeling wretched enough to die. The next morning you awake, your fever is broken, and you are feeling much better. You feel secure, snug and strong - and suddenly you realize why. You're now in your parents' bed. In the middle of the night someone came to get you to take you home."

I am still afraid. There is so much I want to do before I die. But each MRI test result that is negative brings me closer to trust, closer to fruition of my goals, and further from the fear of death. And, it helps me to seize each moment, and realize that it may be my last, so I better make it count.