Had my MRI and found out what I have. Claustrophobia. Not really, that was just a joke (only just).

Before I went in, I had to fill a form in. I didn’t know all the answers, so I was reading it out and asking mother. One of the questions I asked her about was “Have I ever had an aganini?”
“What?”
“Uh… Oh, an angina.”
That sent mother into hysterics.

When we went through, the radiographer read through the questions and my answers. For some reason, she felt the need to ask me them all again. One of the questions she asked was “Do you wear a hearing aid?”
So I said “Pardon?”
But she didn’t really get it. She just repeated the question.
Then she said “You’ve had a heart attack?”
“Yes. No. What? Have I?”
Apparently I’d ticked yes for having had a heart attack. She said “I was a bit worried then, you don’t look old enough to have a heart attack.”

They said in the meeting the other week that I could have music on, cos I wasn’t sure if I’d stay still. So I brought Automatic for the People with me. But then the woman said they weren’t going to put music on cos they’ll be telling me to hold my breath at points, so I was a bit annoyed about that. There were in fact long periods of silence, so it would’ve been nice to have the music.

Went in and saw the machine, thought ‘this is cool!’. They got me to lie down and then they put some headphones on me. But the left speaker was half off my ear, which I could feel and really bugged me. I went to move it but they’d started strapping something over my chest, trapping my arms. So then I had half an hour thinking about that and feeling uncomfortable.

The bit I was lying on moved in and it wasn’t too bad, not that enclosed. It was white with a line of grey painted on, and I noticed bits of dodgy painting, as well as a few red specs. Bit unnerving seeing blood in there.

Then it was just a case of lying there and listening to the noise of the camera, which sounded like a broken internet router. Every now and then a voice came through the headphone and said “Breathe in and stop” then the camera took photos, then he said “Breathe normally”. Thing is, it was really crackly and I could hardly hear it, so the first time I was confused why he was telling me to lean in and shop. I thought if he says ‘breath in and stop’ and the headphones break, I’ll just be lying there turning purple. It was also a really dull voice, pre-recorded and just played over and over again. They could’ve made it a bit more interesting like having a sexy female voice. Then again, it’d be embarrassing if you got an erection half way through the scan. You should be able to choose your voice. I’d have Tommy Cooper. “Breathe in and stop… Not like that.”

Because it takes multiple photos, it seemed like… y’know in photobooths where you do 4 different takes. It felt like that, and I thought ‘I wonder if my heart’s doing lots of different poses’.

After a long time they started moving me. It moved back out a bit and took some photos, then back in and took some, then out, then in and so on. It felt like a really elaborate hokey cockey. “You put your one patient in… VRRRRRRRRRM *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* … You put your one patient out…”

Then after a while it went all the way out and I thought ‘Oh, it’s all done now, wasn’t too bad’. But then the woman started talking to me. I still had the headphones on, so all I heard was “MrrflefrrflemrrffDIE. Mrrfle OKAY?”
What?! Did she just tell me I’m going to die?!
I got her to take the headphones off and then she told me she was going to inject some dye and take a few more photos. This wasn’t told to me before and I don’t like needles, so that annoyed me.

Then I went back in and had some more photos and back out again.
The woman said “That was all nice and easy.”
So I said “For you maybe.”

Then she took me back to the waiting room where mother was and I said to mother “Good news, I’m pregnant!” which got a laugh.

To be honest, I don’t know what all the fuss was about. It wasn’t too bad lying still and it wasn’t that frightening. If anything it was a bit boring.