My Foot Stopped Working: MRI Day

Some time since my original post I began experiencing a similar numbness and loss of control in my right foot. It began with the outer toes, just like the left. As though fearing it's being out-shined, now four toes are perpetually numb on the left and I have to consciously exercise them to make sure when they operate. Today I felt the loss of control in some calf muscles. It's back now, which is a relief. I wasn't able to identify which muscles went out on me.

Breezy.

On Friday I had a spinal MRI. Blood tests came back almost entirely negative, which was great in that I didn’t have any of those diseases, but disappointing in that I didn’t have an explanation. It’s worthwhile trade; it’s simply a disappointment-balance I want to note. In brainstorming other horrible bodily malfunctions we crossed my history of back problems; after I learned to walk again in Middle School, it would go out as often as four times a week on me. So the hypothesis is that some lingering vertebrate problem or pinched nerve is hampering my legs. Seems plausible enough to warrant manipulating magnetism for my benefit. They rarely let you manipulate magnetism when you want, like in traffic or in a queue.

MRIs fascinate and soothe me. A lot of people complain about claustrophobia and the noises – both of which are sensible complaints. If some jerk behind the glass hit a button, the platform could easily crush you to death. It’s the most immediate representation of how medical science puts our lives in other people’s hands.

The MRI operator offered me headphones with four varieties of music: 60’s, 70’s, Hip Hop, or Classical. I chose Classical, and as I was elevated into the ceramic doughnut of magnetism, I was treated to the most foreboding piano solo imaginable. If you imagine a montage in any movie where the main character goes to the hospital, gets tests and gets bad news, this would be playing in the background. I almost hit the emergency button because I was laughing so hard. It got better when the piano was overridden by the MRI noises itself.

The noise-canceling headphones did not work against the brute force of the MRI machine. Those noises bother nearly as many people as the claustrophobia, but I like them. It sounds like someone is hammering in the next room, and several times it’ll sound like a circular saw, only not as constant, instead broken up into deliberate patterns. The noises are loud and startle a primal part of the psyche; but they’re habitual, highly intentional things as well. The cacophony is too deliberate to be ruckus. That’s good science there.

I see my primary care physician about it tomorrow. We’ll find out if the problem lies in my spinal column soon.

Fine, here's a goatee picture.