Chapter 4

APRIL

The Margarita Guy: Houston, We Have a Problem

The following week, on a day when I had my sacred 9 a.m. hour free, I headed back to Union Square to the lower, lower level. Just another thing on my to-do list. I had one of my usual splitting headaches, which meant doing anything at all seemed like a tedious chore. There weren’t a lot of people waiting, so I waltzed into the barely curtained booth with no issues. I’d left my earrings and metal medal home like a pro. That too-small-curtained booth was not so bad without the wait. I effortlessly put on my gown like I was getting a massage at a fancy spa, and I was quickly called into the MRI room.

If you’ve ever had the privilege of entering a walk-in freezer at the back of a restaurant, then you have a rough idea of the temperature inside an MRI room. The technicians were wearing fleeces with the logo of the radiology place like they were Arctic scientists. The room was gray, and in the center, there was a large white tube that looked like a cross between a futuristic escape pod and an open-air coffin.

“Hey!” Jiminy Cricket walked in.

“Oh, hi!” I said. After our encounter about the fake baby, I felt like we were close friends. He introduced himself as the technician who would be conducting the scan. It became immediately clear he did not remember me, or his important role in my life’s ethical milestone concerning the choice between getting my MRI over with, or the health and well-being of my imaginary baby. Still, he was bursting with energy, sunny and cheerful.

“I hope you’re not claustrophobic!” He laughed.

“Not really,” I said. “How long is this going to take?”

“It’s about an hour, if you hold still. You must stay completely motionless so we can get the clearest images. If you move, it might be longer.” Suddenly I doubted my ability to hold still. “I’m going to put an IV tube in your arm, because in the second part of the scan, we will be injecting a contrast dye into your bloodstream to allow us to see certain parts of your body more clearly, particularly the blood vessels.”

“Why not?” I replied. I knew all about the dye. Several questions on the forms were dedicated to it. I was to get an MRI scan “with and without contrast.” I was intrigued by the expression “with and without” because it seemed so beautifully paradoxical. I had only heard the phrase in relation to the scan and couldn’t really apply it to anything else tangible. “Would you like some coffee, with and without cream?” I could easily apply it to more abstract concepts: “Would you like some marriage, with and without conflict?”

The technician applied the tourniquet and began to insert the IV catheter. The familiar smell of rubbing alcohol filled the air. I stared at the contraption stuck in my arm with morbid fascination. “You can leave this in after the scan if you want to inject a margarita later.” He winked.

I was impressed by his demeanor and understood it was part of his job to make the scanee feel relaxed before inserting them into the escape-pod coffin. I wondered how many others had heard his margarita bit, knowing I wasn’t the first.

“I noticed on the forms that they asked, ‘Have you ever had an allergic reaction to contrast dye?’ How would I know if I was allergic to the dye if I have never had it before?” He’d probably dealt with this question a million times. I’m sure in the past it had occurred to a few people that getting a foreign substance that has been known to cause allergic reactions injected into their bloodstream right before they are slid into a claustrophobic, soundproof coffin, where they are not allowed to move, was cause for a modicum of concern.

“Reactions are extremely rare, and you don’t have any kidney problems,” he said. “And don’t worry, I will be communicating with you over a speaker the whole time, letting you know how long each picture will take. The first one will be about twenty-five minutes. You’ll be hearing loud noises so we’re going to give you some earplugs.”

“I have five kids, so I know from loud noises!” I thought it was a good move to slip in that I had five kids, because they would probably be more careful with me than a less important person who had, say, four kids. The jovial technician whom I now no longer thought of as Jiminy Cricket and currently referred to as “the Margarita Guy,” was pleasant and reassuring.

“Don’t worry, you will be out of here soon.”

It was clear that I was one of the easier scans. Although there are no “routine MRIs,” I was a healthy, youngish person, and this was a “rule-out” MRI due to left-ear hearing loss, that’s it. Ruling out that something inside my body was causing hearing loss. Meaning, nothing was. After the margarita comment, it was clear that I was one of the more “fun” patients, so I decided to have fun. I lay on the plank.

“Do you want a warm blanket?” he asked.

“Yes, and can you read me Goodnight Moon?”

He chuckled as he handed me a rubber ball attached to a cord. “If you need to get our attention, just squeeze this.”

The Margarita Guy moved toward the exit to station himself behind the protective glass that shields the technicians from the poison magnetic rays that were about to happen.

“If I need to get your attention, can’t I just start screaming?” I called out.

“No need,” he replied. “We wouldn’t be able to hear you anyway.” Wait, what? Shouldn’t we test if the ball thing works? The machine started up with a whir and the plank slid me into the tube.

Inside, I was alone with myself. A rare occasion for a mother of five. I felt disconnected from my body. The voice of Margarita Guy shifted to a speaker. I felt like I had been launched into space, and the voice was Houston.

“Okay, this first test will be about twenty-five minutes long. Try not to move.” I realized that I’d forgotten which hand the emergency squeeze ball was in, but I was afraid to slightly clench my hand to remind myself for fear I would break the no-moving rule. How am I going to do this for twenty-five minutes? Then I heard something like a hammer methodically banging on the outside of the tube. That can’t be good, right? Had it malfunctioned? Was I trapped inside and they were trying to crack me out? Had I left some jewelry on like metal in the microwave?

The rhythmic hammer bangs turned into full-fledged jackhammer pounding. This time it was not orderly at all; there was no rhyme or reason to the banging. It was so loud the whole tube should have been shaking, but it wasn’t. This was obviously part of the test. If they were trying to break me out, that tube would have already cracked like an egg dropped on the kitchen floor. Have you ever been at a circus and you saw a clown with one of those huge horns with the rubber ball on it and just for fun they put it right next to your ear and honked it? Well, neither had I, but now I knew what it sounded like. But not a short goofy honk. Imagine that sound, but sustained for somewhere between five seconds and twenty-five minutes. The irony was that the loud honk was in my good ear. The little rubber earplug they’d put in was somehow acting like an amplifier. The horn was periodically interrupted by what is best described as a shotgun firing into my ear, but without the reprieve of instant death. I had a feeling that my “good ear” was no longer going to be very good. I finally understood the animated graphics in the 1960s Batman series: “Pow!” “Blam!” “Ka-POW!” I now saw flashing before my eyes. Then, more incessant banging that morphed into jackhammering. It was great for my headache.

I tried not to breathe. If I moved, even a little, I would have to do this again. I needed no other motivation to keep perfectly still. Suddenly I got an itch on my eyebrow that felt like a mosquito was trolling around looking for a lunch place. I realized that I normally took for granted the simple gesture of the scratch. Do people in comas who can’t move or talk get itches and experience this unbearable sensation? Let it pass; let it pass. Say some Hail Marys. Wait, I can’t remember the words, even though I’ve known them since I was five. Twenty-five minutes turned into twenty-five hours.

Finally, I heard from Houston: “Okay, great job. This next scan will be about ten minutes.” Ten minutes. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I could do this standing on my head, or even lying on my back, unable to move in a freezing coffin. I became one with the test. I chose to accept it. Embrace it. The banging, horns, and shotgun blasts became like white noise to me. This wasn’t so bad. Much easier than trying to get five kids to brush their teeth. In fact, I may invest in a banging isolation chamber for my own house just to get some peace, if not quiet, every now and again. I think I might have even dozed off.

“Okay, good job, now we are going to inject the dye.” I startled awake. I felt a rush through my blood, first cold, then warm, and tasted a sharp chemical flavor in my mouth that was kind of like drinking a shot of rubbing alcohol. It wasn’t a warm feeling as in a “warm and fuzzy” feeling, but it didn’t hurt or anything. It felt as if I had released my bladder in the tube and the liquid had spread out and enveloped me in a blanket. Pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. With and without pleasant.

The rest of the scan moved along without incident. I stayed perfectly still, encouraged by Margarita Guy periodically telling me I was doing a “good job.” I didn’t squeeze the help button even once.

And then it was over and the auto-slider ejected me slowly from my noisy chamber of peace. The on-time dismissal meant they did not have to redo any of the pictures. Another of life’s experiences tried and over with. I’ll never have to do that again. As I sat up on the plank, I thought about which of the witty remarks I had been thinking up for the past hour and a half to use on Margarita Guy. He entered the room.

“I’ll take that margarita now!” I said. That’s what we improvisers call a “yes, and.” But he didn’t “yes, and” me back. In fact, he didn’t even crack a half smile.

“You can go get dressed and wait in the reception area.” He avoided looking me in the eyes as he spoke. What happened to “good job!”? He was complimenting me over the microphone through the whole test, and now that I had survived and held perfectly still, he was just going to blow me off? I thought we had something. Before, he was my improv partner; he was my conscience.

“Can I just go then?” I was eager to put this whole experience behind me. I mean, I was glad I’d had the test—knowledge is power—but I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could.

“You should wait in the reception area. Your doctor will call you.” Our eyes met briefly before he turned abruptly and exited the room. A creepy chill went down my spine. Despite his best attempts at a medical poker face, Jiminy Margarita had looked at me with horror. Like he was looking at a corpse.

I walked back to the reception area and sat down to try to figure out what had just happened. Why the sudden change in demeanor? I had to be imagining it. I’d walked into this appointment to tick something off my to-do list, but now I was overcome with a sense of dread and foreboding. I stood and walked over to reception.

“Hi, my name is Jeannie Noth Gaffigan. I was just told to wait for my doctor to call me here? His office is uptown, and I was just supposed to make a follow-up appointment with him two weeks after the scan.”

The icy receptionist looked up this time. “He must have ordered a rapid response. We sent him the report, and we are waiting for him to call.”

“Okay, thanks,” I replied dutifully and sat back down. I checked my phone. Nothing but spam emails. I couldn’t focus. “A rapid response.” No, that’s not true. He just sent me in for a “rule-out.” I remembered this vividly. Get the MRI scan to rule out anything wrong with my inner ear, then make a follow-up visit in two weeks. Nope. Nothing about a rapid response. I called Jim.

“What’s up?” he asked curtly when he answered the phone. He was clearly in the middle of something. This is the primary way we communicate: answering each other’s calls in a hurry and sounding annoyed when we are in the middle of something.

“Jim, I just had an MRI scan.” I recalled that this appointment was so minimal to me, just another thing I had to do to interrupt my busy day, that I hadn’t told him I was getting an MRI. I hadn’t even told him about the first attempt to get an MRI. It was just another thing I had to do.

“Are you okay?” Jim sounded concerned.

“I don’t know. I think so. I went in because I had hearing loss in my left ear, but now everyone here is acting strange and they won’t let me leave.”

“Do you want me to come there?” he asked. Amazing Jim. I knew he was busy, but he would drop everything for me.

“No! I want to go home!” I didn’t want to sound whiny, so I decided to get mad. “I’m leaving! I’ll be home in a minute.” I hung up and marched over to the reception desk. “Excuse me. Can I see the order from my doctor where it says, ‘rapid response’?” The receptionist seemed to be surprised by this question.

“Pardon me?” she asked.

“You just told me that my doctor wanted a ‘rapid response,’ but he told me nothing of the sort. He just sent me in for a rule-out MRI. So, if he indeed told you I was supposed to get an MRI scan at this radiology center, that has no doctors’ offices connected to it, and that I was supposed to sit here all day while we waited for him to call you so you could give him a ‘rapid response,’ I’d like to see where he wrote that.” I craned my neck as though I were trying to see her top secret computer screen. I had turned into the old man. Clearly I was not going to let her blow me off.

“Hold on.” She picked up the phone. “Have a seat just for a moment.” I stood there for a beat to be sure she was not just faking a call to get rid of me, and then I slowly backed into a chair, not taking my eyes off her. I wasn’t playing. Then, the original woman in the pink scrubs appeared from the back. Smiling and totally pleasant. “Hi, Ms. Gaffigan?”

I stood up. “Yes, here!”

“You can go home. Your doctor is in surgery now. He will call you when he’s done.” I was confused. I no longer sensed any weirdness about the attitude of the staff, but my doctor will call me? That was not part of the plan. As I mentioned before, I was pretty positive he’d said, “After you get the MRI, make an appointment in two weeks.” Maybe at this lower, lower level place, deep in the basement bowels of the building, they always assumed the doctor would call after the MRI, just as a courtesy that anything unusual had been ruled out. That had to be it. Yet, something was nagging at me about this whole situation. I left and walked home from Union Square. I needed some air.