“Good afternoon, Nathan.  It’ll be interesting to see how we have changed in 6 years.  I know I have a little less hair.”

“And I have a little more.”  That’s what I should have said, but I was about 5 seconds too slow, and the moment was gone.  To be honest, I don’t remember him having any hair at all.

I don’t think surgeons like to see their patients again for the same problem that they supposedly fixed.  Seven years ago, I expected to wake from having my left knee scoped, and after a short recovery, be back to normal in three weeks.  On coming out of anesthesia, however, the surgeon informed me that my case was one of the 2% where a tear in the cartilage is repairable due to the small size of the tear and high blood flow in that area.  I did not know that this was a possibility.  By repairing the tear instead of excising it, long term health of the knee should be better, with decreased risk of arthritis.  The trade-off was that instead of a three week recovery to 100% functionality, it was a six month timeframe, including eight weeks in a splint.  A few months later, when he operated on my right knee, for what seemed like the same problem, it was not in that 2%, and after a short recovery, the knee was back to normal and has been ever since.

But that left knee, the repaired one, has never quite been right.  Lately it has been getting worse, and I am not able to bicycle as fast now, so here I am.  The surgeon sent me to radiology for some x-rays.  About six of them.  Bent, straight, facing one way, then another.  The good news was that there does not appear to be arthritis, which apparently is already possible at my age.  His conclusion mirrored the one I had brought to the exam room with me that day: there is probably a new tear, or the old one never really healed all the way.  It seems that I may have been favoring that knee, protecting it because of its weakness, and now that I really push it, the weakness is showing.  So the surgeon informed me an MRI is in order.  If it shows what he expects, he will excise the tear this time.  I said I would be happy with that, since the right knee has worked out so well.

At the MRI scheduling desk, they have a questionnaire to fill out.  There are questions like “Do you have a pacemaker?” and “are you scared of confined spaces?”.  I have had an MRI for each knee before, but I didn’t remember this question: “Do you weld or grind metal, or do sheet metal work for work or hobby?”  I figured that they were concerned about the possibility some piece of work may have got loose and lodged itself somewhere inside me.  I do metal work occasionally, but to the best of my knowledge, have nothing stuck in me that shouldn’t be there, so I marked “no”.  When I went to turn the form in, I asked the scheduler for clarification on that part.

“I do machine and grind metal, but mostly just aluminum.”

“Aluminum is metal”

“I know, but it’s non-ferrous, so it shouldn’t be a problem with the magnetic field should it?”

“It just says metal.  They want to make sure there are no little bits of it that may have gotten in your eyes and stayed there, because the MRI may cause them to move and exit your eyeball.”

“That would be wild!”

Mouth agape, and staring wide-eyed through her forehead, she replied, “No.  That would be gross.  Very, very gross.  That would be bad.”

So today I went to have the MRI, but first an orbital x-ray of my eyes needed to be taken, just to be safe.  The technician had me sit in a chair with a blank panel in front of my face.  She was very specific about how I had to stay in a certain position and not move.  But the panel was so close to my face that I could not focus my eyes on it.  And it was also so far away that I could not feel it with my nose.  So I wasn’t sure I was being still.  She went to take the picture, and didn’t come back right away.  Is she done yet?  After a couple minutes, she came back, and had me turn to the side, once again very specific about angle, tilt, and being very still.  So I stared at this spot on the wallpaper. This time she was gone even longer.  I didn’t want to blink, in case the picture wasn’t done yet, but time was getting on, and the wall was starting to look purple for staring in one way.  My neck started to hurt holding it exactly how she put it.  Eventually I was released to go in to the MRI machine, since no metal was found in my eyes, ferrous or otherwise.

On one of my previous MRI scans on this same machine, the technician was less than thorough about empty pockets.  I had my wallet in my back pocket, and all the magnetic stripes on all the cards got erased.  This time I was asked about 10 times if my pockets were empty.

The test began as before, a series of noises accompanied by a countdown timer over my face.  The clock started with four minutes.  I closed my eyes.  I had folded my hands on my belly, fingers interlocked.  This isn’t very comfortable, but I shouln’t move to change it now.  Must remain still.  But it’s too bothersome to leave this way for the whole 30 minute scan.  I can fix it after this countdown is done.  I opened my eyes to see how much longer.  Two minutes.

The next thing I knew, the technician was waking me up . . . the test was done!