Touchdown Brings Me 'Round Again

Do not, and I really gotta stress this, DO NOT attempt to prep/chill/peace out for your 2 PM Sunday MRI ahead of time by taking half a calm-me-down pill at 9:30 AM, chased with a weed gummy (pineapple habanero, thenkyouveddymuch) and then another what-the-hell-let’s-be-sure-I’m-REALLY-chill-in-the-machine gummy as our hero, Jen, is driving us in to MRIville at 11:30.

Why not? Shit kicks in slow…like the tide. The tide totally sneaks up on you. It's not there and then... *WHAM*

I was feeling alright, relaxed, until I was conveyor belted into the machine. I had a black sleep mask over my eyes and my hearing aid was out (which only picks up louder, concussive sounds anyway – no language, music, tone or sound direction). My head was bolstered into its cage – I  couldn’t move. This was sensory deprivation city.

And then my mind exploded. No, not in a blood and guts kind of a way – nope. This was a late ’60s/early ‘70s sound and vision, inspired by Owsley Stanley Purple Haze, kind of explosion. Oh yeah babies, I was eight miles high and not touching down anytime soon.

The inside of my head was like one of those iMax theaters and I was sitting front row/center. I was watching my smoking skull (someone else’s smoking skull?) rise high and fast into a dark, star spotted night. I was zooming over the surface of the ocean, greeting orcas and other whales. I visited octopuses – I think they were having tea.

Yep, I was quite unexpectedly tripping my fat ta-tas off. 

Once I realized what was happening, I just tried to go with it, enjoy the ride. It was certainly a distraction from being stuck in the small, tight place, unable to move.

Still, HOW could this have been possible? Maybe the very small amount of pharmaceutical calm-me-down med ignited those two weed gummies into a medicinal kaleidoscope joyride? Could I, in my pre-MRI claustrophobia nervousness, accidentally dropped an additional calm-me-down or a third gummy?

I don’t remember doing so but it’s possible.

When the techs pulled me out of the machine I was still pretty disoriented but I could, with my rollator and Jen’s assistance, walk. I told her that “I’m trippin’ my balls off here. I don’t actually have balls but I guess you know that. I gotta pee now.”

Yep, I guess I’m a talky little day tripper. 

She took me to the large disabled persons loo where I’d have more room to spaz around while I changed out of my ever so stylish johnny pants and gown. Jesus, Jen’s a saint.

Amazingly, I succeeded in getting back into my shorts and T (with Saint Jen’s help, of course) AND was able to walk to the car (using the rollator) all by myself (well, Jen spotted me but there was no need for the wheelchair). The entire time though, I was waffling between “I think I’m just pleasantly high now” and “nope, I am definitely still tripping with the roadies.” It seemed to change by the moment.

Once in the car, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I turned to Jen and announced, “I have the munchies – BAD!” Luckily, Jen had a bag of small dark chocolate dipped pretzels RIGHT THERE, opened and at the ready.

Have I mentioned Jen’s obvious celestial beinghoodedness yet? Yes, I think I might have. It’s quite true, you know. With the biggest smile pasted on my gob, I ate all her pretzels while grinning like a madwoman and cloud-watching on the way home.

Then, on getting to Valhalla, Ten and Jen helped me up the stairs and into my comfy chair where I had some veggie chips and continued to enjoy being high and done with my MRI.

When do I get the results? When do I find out whether the slight swelling and interior sense of numbness in my left calf, ankle and foot is due to a growth spurt in the tumors over my motor cortex OR is caused by something else entirely?

Dunno. I’ll drop Doc Plotkin and his nurse practitioner a note this morning. Good news – I would really like some good news today. Thank you!

Emmmm, in conclusion, don’t trip during your MRIs. Being chilled out is cool – unexpectedly having front row seats to a show of my smoking skull rising into the stratosphere on its way to Europa or some nice bodega on Proxima Centauri b is, well, fascinating if a tad unnerving

Brains and No Brains

I had one of my thrice yearly MRI days yesterday. Over the past five years I’ve switched over to the open MRI. No more torpedo tube shaped coffins for me. Unlike our bloodsucking fiend friends, I just can’t abide them. Open MRI's, from my standpoint, are doable BUT:

• My head is still stuffed in a cage and tightly packed in so that I can’t move and fuck up the scans.
  

• While the machine’s sides are mostly open, I’m wedged between a lower and upper plate like a ham sandwich. Yeah, I’m the ham.

The scanning of me bean and the spine section (today was lumbar day...wheee!) takes two hours. If I need a third spine stretch done, I schedule it for another day. Three hours, even in the open MRI, is too damn long for me and my antsy self.

Because I have astro high claustrophobia and anxiety I have to med up with gummies, a hot toddy and extra small doses of lorazapam, starting two days in advance of MRI Day. No, I’m not getting drunk or pongingly high—I’m just trying to, in advance, remain calm so I’m able to get into the machine AND stay there for the test’s duration.

My scheme works.

Here’s a wicked cool thing—MGH now has a brandy new MRI. One of the techs told me about it AND showed it to me. It’s a tube BUT the bore is bigger than the traditional model. The new wide bore measures 70 centimeters versus 60 in the old school MRIs. Not only does wide bore baby scan at twice the speed of the open MRI, it has better image quality. Wide bore's image quality is NOT quite as good as the closed old school tube though.

I’ll need to discuss this with Plotkin next week when I get my scan results.

In other news form Planet Insanity, the swindling, brain banjaxed griftasaurus is working yet another con—$100,000.00 for a gold watch with his name. The watch is titled "Tourbillon." “Tourbillon,” in case you were unaware, is a French term that means "whirlwind." I’m gonna assume Demento Don’s watch hands and dials spin wildly (“weaving”) as they attempt to tell time.

As he lags behind Kamala Harris in fundraising and with Truth Social stock plummeting, Trump is desperate to raise money for his campaign and legal fees any way he can. (source)

No word on who creates these Scrooge McDuck timepieces.

Are they made with the vaunted Swiss craftsmanship of Breitling? Did he go with the deeply respected home team? New York’s Bulova timepieces have flown on over 40 NASA missions. They can’t suck if astronauts wear them in space. Right?! What about Omega?

Aside from the brand's 007-related fame, there's a long-standing history of producing watches for sports, space, and the sea. Fine craftsmanship meets bold innovation here. (source)

Or does Cheato the Cheapskate have his $100K watches made by the same folks who manufacture Primark, Swatch and other fast fashion, fun watches?

To my mind, it doesn’t really matter. This low rent dusty carnival barker is just looking for some last big scores. The people with enough bucks to throw away on his cheap-ass knockoffs, gimcracks and other ridiculous shit KNOW that the watches and whatevers will never be made, let alone shipped. They all fully understand that Clownshoes is booking out on the Fraudster Express the minute he loses the presidential race. He’ll hit up some no extradition country that has golf courses and women who won’t be allowed to evade or complain about his sexual assaults.

Custer had a last stand—the Orange Moron is going after his last score.

Concept of a Blog Post

I actually slept pretty well last night. No body wracking coughing fits and my sinuses weren’t stopped up tighter than Constantinople. I took a couple of COVID tests which came up clear. YEA me!

The sojourn in Sleepy-bye Land was fab except for the last dream of the night where Daddy and I were  driving somewhere in a forested area—he was at the wheel. Somehow we ended up rocketing down an old rickety pier, plunging off the end into a lake. I managed to escape the sinking car—Daddy did not. I kept diving down to rescue him out but was foiled by the murky, churning water. I was horrified and felt tremendously guilty that I'd failed to reach him.

I went home to find BOTH Mother and Daddy sitting at the dining room table. He was sitting right there, silent and still though. What the ghostly fuck?!

I tried to tell Mother about the accident, that I was unable to save the old man but Lucy wasn’t listening to me (typical). She got up and walked away without uttering a single word, without any acknowledgement. It was as though I didn’t exist. Almost like real life.

This was NOT a fun dream.
~~~
In other horror shows, it looks like the orange painted, philandering geezerly grifter has found “love” again. Laura Loomer, the plasticized QAnon whack-a-loon is 31 years old—just one year older than his much ignored second daughter. The creepy codger? 78. The age difference would be nauseating if not for the fact that they’re so exceptionally well matched. That is, they both have the emotional maturity of a colicky two year old and the intellectual capabilities of a Chow Chow missing its frontal lobe.

 They’re ridiculous—completely laughable.

Remember the movie Moonstruck? I’m paraphrasing Rose here: “Why do men chase younger women? They fear death.” Whereas young women chase old men to obtain social connections and financial ease. Yes, yez, yezzzzz, not all…

Lunatic and Demento—a love story for the ages.
~~~
Am I claustrophobic or cleithrophobic?

Cleithrophobia is the fear of being trapped, locked in, unable to escape. It relates to situations. Claustrophobia relates to space.

A claustrophobic person may feel trapped or locked in, even if they are free to leave. A cleithrophobic person, on the other hand, can handle tight spaces but will panic if confined or locked in, even if the location is spacious. (source)

Claustrophobia triggers include:

• Locked rooms
• MRIs
• Crowded elevators

I avoid evenly moderately crowded elevators. Having the walker helps though. I take up more room—my larger personal space is harder to breach. Now I have that Police song stuck in my head.

• Windowless rooms
• Tunnels

Back when I worked in Boston proper, I’d regularly come down with the GET ME OUTTA HERE heebie jeebies in the O'Neill Tunnel during the rush hour commutes. Lots of deep breathing exercises were necessary.

• Airplanes

They feel like large, crowded MRI tubes.

I’m claustrophobic with a sprinkling of cleithrophobia.

On a related note, I’m up for two, maybe three MRIs in a couple of weeks. These will be the “open” variety which are significantly less of a struggle to get through.

Do I know how to have fun or WHAT?!

The Ordeal

About those back to back MRIs yesterday. They didn’t go well. No, I don’t have the results yet (and won’t until the 28th when I next see Plotkin). Also, I was sufficiently mellowed out...or so I thought. The problem was the staff—I believe they were training new techs (MGH is a teaching hospital after all).

• Instead of the normal one and three quarters to two hours of machine time, I was in there for close to three fucking hours. Yes, it’s an “open MRI” versus the traditional torpedo tube MRI but my head was still enclosed in a cage (and packed tight in there with stiff foam padding so my shaking—those fucking tremors I get—would be minimized). At the top of the two hour mark, I realized I should’ve taken more drugs.

• Each of my two-in-a-row scans is a two part deal. In the past, the first half is done straight—brain and then upper spine (no pause between the two). For the second half, they shoot some “contrast” shit into me. My understanding is that this is some kind of neon-esque fluid that lights up my tumors all nice and Broadway-like.

Not me. Picture this set up though, 
with vinyl covered, stiff foam 
padding on either side of my head.

The techs don’t roll me completely outta the machine to shoot me up—just far enough to inject the neon into my already installed IV. When I have these back to back MRIs, I’m shot up with contrast once only. The techs do my brain and thoracic scans one after the other.

Yesterday was different. For the first time in my 40 years of these fucking torturous tests, the techs took me completely out of the machine after each step. In fact, each time they had me get up and sit on a chair whilst they fiddled with the machine’s set up. Afterward, they placed me back on the platform, repacked my head in its tight cage and I was rolled in again. 

Lemme just tell you, each head packing, each time my head’s caged, is a fresh challenge to my  mondo muscular claustrophobia. This happened a total of FOUR times (brain without contrast, spine without contrast, brain w/contrast and spine w/contrast).

• On one of my sitting-in-a-chair breaks, I realized that I had to hit the loo. I told the tech but she vetoed that, saying they were ready to start me up again. I figured I could maybe hold on for a bit—after all, we just HAD to be close to done. I lasted as long as I could before hitting the panic button and shouting “I NEED TO PEE NOW, NOW, NOW!” The techs rolled me out, freed my head, took out my IV and off I quickly tottled to the can.

Thank the beautiful baby Bast that Jen was there to assist. I made it. Also, the ordeal was finally over.

I’ve been getting MRIs for the past 40 years. Now that I’m using the “open MRI,” I can stand to be in the machine for two scans in a row. Getting my brain and thoracic spine done in the same session saves me from having to take calming meds for a solid week (that shit wears me clean out). It saves me from having to endure horrendous Boston traffic multiple times in a week. It’s smoother, less stressful. Usually.

Yesterday was fucking amateur hour.

Jen told me later that the woman who came out before I went in was upset and yelling back at the techs about how rude they were. I didn’t find them rude so much as inexperienced, not as skilled as I’m accustomed. They were obviously stressed out and in way over their heads.

Oh yeah, I’m totally registering a complaint or three.

Big Day for Donna

 I’m having two MRIs this morning. One for my brain—specifically focusing on that mondo motherfucker that Dr. Curry (AKA Barack Obama’s twin) will be trimming down next month (on April 9th to be all precise and shit). The second MRI is for the Cthulu-esque mother on my thoracic spine. I don’t believe that one’s currently acting up but the fucker’s gotta be looked in on regularly.

Whoopee!
I’ve taken my calm me down pills but, as yet, do not feel particularly stoned. I’ll have one more tab before they load me into the machine. Maybe a wee weed gummy too.

Joy.

After these scans are in the rear view mirror I’ll, hopefully, regain some of my ability to concentrate and focus. If so, I can smoothly get back to my tax prep work. I also need to find a new supplemental health care plan. I only discovered that the plan I’ve had for years, stopped covering me sometime this past fall with NO notice. I’ve got Medicare but need something else to fill in the gaps.  

All the paperwork that comes with being a goddamned adult? HATE IT!

What I’d really love to do is ditch this Neurofibromatosis Type 2 shit, pack a bag and hop a flight to the Shetland Islands. I want to check out the wicked cool archeological digs, bird watch and hang in some old rustic pubs. Maybe zip over to Iceland next, take a long spin around the island before easing myself into the geothermic pool at the Silica Hotel. I’d like to check out what all that hot lava has done to the landscape. Anything? Next I’ll hit Greenland. I’ve never been there before. I’d def check out the Nuuk Art Museum, some glaciers, icebergs, hot springs, polar bears, whales and reindeer.

I need to be able to walk better before I do this (or get a walker with mountain bike tires). Also, renewing my goddamn passport is key. What languages are spoken in Greenland? Does my voice to text translation app carry it?

This morning here in Valhalla

MRI Day 2

 Literature is the most agreeable way of avoiding life.
~ Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

I’m in complete agreement. Oh, sure, sure, there are myriad ways to, at least temporarily, escape this tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There’s music. There’s painting and pottery. Sitting on the beach at sunrise, listening to the waves roll in—that can do the trick too. All that’s great but with my banjaxed audio and essential tremors, kinda not possible now. Still, I can sit on the shore at sunrise and watch the waves and I can still doodle.

He once watched her strangle a vampire to death with its own severed hand.
~ James J. Butcher, Dead Man’s Hand

While garroting your victim with their own flesh mitt, is a decidedly punk rock kind of murder method, I have a couple questions.
You can strangle vampires and that’ll kill them? I thought vamps only achieved the final dirt nap by way of direct sunlight, holy water poisoning or a stake through the heart. Did I miss an update?

Also, murder done with the bloodsucker’s very own severed hand? I suppose that would put paid to leaving ones own incriminating fingerprints laying about. Still, kinda over the top and pretentiously heartless, in’it?

You must excuse me now, I’m off to MGH Imaging in Chelsea for my big fun MRI-a-thon (TWO hours, count 'em TWO). 

Too bad I can’t read while scanning.

How’d it go?

It was a messy, chilly, rainy day yesterday as Jen and I headed over to Chelsea for the first of my three MRIs. Anticipating the usual shitty Monday morning commute, we left two hours early. Shockingly, we made it in less than an hour so it was off to a Dunkin’ for doughnuts and watching the rain pour down.

I DID make it through this shorter (one hour) of the two MRI sessions reasonably well. (tomorrow’s scan is the back to back, two hour spine marathon)

This was accomplished, by the by, no thanks to the clinic’s staff. I believe the F Team was on board. The nurse who was charged with putting in my IV looked to be 85 years old, had on more bronzer than Cheeto (who knew that was even possible) and was dressed in snappy tropical ware appropriate for a day of pickle ball at The Villages. (Was she flying out after her lunch break?) More importantly, after two different slow, fumbling, painful and failed attempts to get the IV needle in and hooked up, she fetched her boss (a young-ish dude) to take over. He got it in and done in just a minute. I’m guessing Mildred was more focused on her Florida game time than my veins.

The MRI techs were also less than A Team quality. How so? Despite telling them that I’m deaf and, to communicate with me, they could either write down what they’re saying OR show me, mime it for me, they did neither. Did they think that if they kept repeating themselves I’d magically regain my audio input capacity? Between the IV nurse and these instruction resistant techs the lovely, soothing effects of my calm-me-down medswere definitely burning off.

My Xmas cactus is blooming early.
No doubt inspired by all the retailers down the mall.

Ultimately, the actual event went fine (on my end anyway). I’m a wee bit concerned about tomorrow though. Jen suggested that I bring a pad and pen and just hand it to them when they talk AT me.

Keeping me calm is the only way my claustrophobic ass is getting through this. Ya know what’d be ideal? If the staff had even a smidgen of an idea as to how to effectively communicate. I mean, this is a medical care facility. I imagine they have all kinds of folks coming in who can’t hear and/or don’t necessarily speak English. 47.2% of the folks who live in Chelsea are foreign born. How would the staff handle someone who’s only language is Bosnian?

To be ultra clear, the MRI staff at this particular outpost were great during all my previous visits. Maybe yesterday was a fluke.This is the only Imaging Center (for MGH) that has a so-called open MRI so I don’t exactly have a choice as to where I can get my scans done.

Tonight I’ll pop another calm-me-down-pill. Maybe I’ll drop a gummy now before I get even more tense.

It's MRI Day #1

 Hi, this your Vaccine Queen here this morning. My pneumonia vaxxed arm finally doesn’t hurt anymore, Yea! 

Now I need to schedule the other two prescribed shots (shingles and some other shit) at my local CVS. That can wait a week. This week I need to get through my MRI-a-thon. I REALLY need the calm-me down-pills to get through this but I HATE them. They work, sure. With them I can make it through the one and two hour tube times BUT, afterwards, I’m logy as a drunk poet after a three day vodka and Bukowski binge.

My physical therapy routines have fallen apart, I’m not walking much or even getting on the damn elliptical. I gotta remember that this is just one week that happens every four months. I’ll get back on the rehab train next week.

Word to the stressed out old broad (that'd be me)—CHILL. This week will be over soon. I should enjoy the lower PT performance pressure while it lasts. I’ll be back to walking a mile and hitting all my rehab goals soon.