Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Test Tube Baby

I had an MRI yesterday.
Me ,
the claustrophobe.
It was my third one
in the last five years.
I was supposed to have it on Monday,
but I was near the place
and I had a weird feeling
they might have an opening,
and I was feeling kind of brave,
so I stopped in.
Sure enough,
they’d just had a cancellation.
I quickly
popped half a valium,
unwrapped my new lavender eye pillow,
and said, “o.k.”.
I hate MRI’s.
The fucking tube they stick you in
is a nightmare.
But this time
I said I wasn’t going to look.
So before they ever slid me in the tube,
I put my eye pillow over my eyes,
put the headsets on they gave me,
and let them push me in.
I kept trying to think of that song
“Ground Control to Major Tom…”
pretending I was an astronaut in a space ship
orbiting the earth
on some really important mission.
But it didn’t help.
The only way I could get calm
was to have one of the techs keep their hand
on my leg
so I knew that I existed “out there”.
It really helped.
I told her “leg toucher” should be a paid position.
But I couldn't hear what she said back.
I was listening to the Beach Boys sing
“Help Me Rhonda”
and “Little Deuce Coup,”
and whatever else they had
on the oldies station.
I felt the valium kick in
and I slid into this weird alternative universe
where someone could knock but I
didn’t have to get up to answer the door.
I just kept listening to the knocking
And thinking about her hand on my leg
and hoping it was a her.
The truth is
I didn’t know who was touching me.
Thirty minutes later they slid me out
like a body at the morgue.
I lifted off my eye pillow
and squinted under the bright lights.
The girl who had been touching my leg leaned over and said
It was all over with.
I wanted to pay her,
or bless her,
or take her to dinner.
Something.
I have never been so comforted by a stranger.
She just smiled.
But she didn't know
what I had just done.
I walked through my fears.
I did it.
Next time I’m going to try to do it
without the valium.
But I really hope
there won’t be a next time.