MRI

Unfortunately, even after all the laughter the day before, yesterday was not so good.

I had a last-minute MRI scheduled (by which I mean, while I was talking to the surgeon on Monday, they scheduled my MRI for Tuesday), which meant I had to get out of my Starbucks shift for that day. Fortunately, I had already brought up my condition to the person who ended up covering my shift, so I didn't have to say, "By the way . . . " and all that.

It was a glorious fall day, and I thought how great it would be to go for a walk in Elm Park instead of hanging out in a tube, but it didn't occur to me until I ended up in a room that looked like something out of the original Star Wars that I maybe should have brought Heather-of-Six or someone along for moral support.

I knew she wouldn't have been able to come into the "docking bay" with me, but still, knowing she was there outside for me to immediately debrief to would have been strengthening, I think. When the technician not-very-skillfully jabbed a small catheter into my arm and left it there (this is the first time anyone's ever stuck something into my vein and not taken it back out again almost immediately), I realised I was "not in Kansas" anymore.

And when I lay face down onto the padded device which was to slide me into the giant magnetic test tube, I felt like I wanted to cry. The technician asked me what XM station I wanted to listen to during my ordeal, and 90's-to-now seemed good enough at the time, although in hindsight I'm pretty sure I'll ask for classical, because listening to people crooning or moaning about either fulfilled or unfulfilled love, while the sounds of a construction dig were going on all around me, somehow in association with a disease I didn't ask for that has to do with part of what makes me female and someone who might like to be a candidate for fulfilled love at some point in her existence was, shall we say, not altogether uplifting.

Afterwards I went to the mall to look for a dress for a wedding I'm going to on Friday. I have really been looking forward to going to this wedding because I really like the couple and they and their friends are so much fun I'm pretty sure the wedding will be, too. But I was also hungry, and the food court in that mall is really creepy, particularly when it's empty, which it mostly was. There's a carousel that plays carousel music which only doesn't sound nightmarish when it's outside and there are lots of people and real children enjoying it. There were also those weird little "bucking bronco"-type kiddie rides, complete with disembodied children's-laughter sound effects, which added to the whole "oh yeah, it's October, the month when we think about dead people" ambiance. Then there were little table tents on all the tables with pink ribbons on them because (as the ever-with-it-and-observant-Kristin (formerly posting on this blog as "cuppajojo") had already pointed out to me) it is Breast-Cancer-Awareness-Month as well as Pastor Appreciation Month.

Plus, somehow retail therapy didn't seem to cut it in the circumstances.

Plus I didn't find a dress.