The best way to stop worrying about yourself is to start worrying about someone else. With that motto in mind, I stopped at the grocery store on my way to the MRI. I wanted to pick up some flowers for Billie, the head receptionist, who had jumped through fiery hoops the day before in order to both schedule my MRI and get the insurance company to pay for it.
Then I picked up a card and some cash for Jessica, my mammogram technician. I honestly don’t know what prompted me to put the $100 bill in the card. I was certain she would think I was crazy, but that’s what’s fun about being courageously kind. You get to totally re-route someone’s day.
I didn’t have to worry about finding either woman at the clinic. They both found me the minute I walked through the door. I got big hugs and big well wishes. I felt so loved going into that appointment. It was as if God were placing happy little angels all along my path.
The MRI was a strange experience, but my technician, Holly, warned me it would be. I had to lie on a ramp on my stomach with my breasts hanging down in two big cut out holes. It reminded me a little of lying on a massage table, with the exception of the droopy boobs. Holly laughed when I told her this really wasn’t my most flattering position.
I wore earplugs and then headphones and basically closed my eyes and tried not to move. Holly pumped in my favorite contemporary Christian music on Pandora. We thought it would take about a half an hour, but thanks to computer glitches, I laid in that strange loudly thumping machine for about an hour. My hands were numb and my head was killing me, but when it was all said and done, it wasn’t so bad.
I just prayed that the machine got all the pictures it needed to tell the radiologist exactly what we were dealing with.