It's quite remarkable how we
can live from moment to moment with absolutely no awareness of what will come
at any moment. No warning of, perhaps, impending terror. To go about daily
business: tasks and appointments, planned in advance with no real concerns.
Maybe a little nervous of what is anticipated and even that is purely a worry
about what may not happen. People do tend to think of the worst. Not everybody
though it is a common occurrence. No reason to think the worst, but to imagine
the worst anyhow. It may never happen, whatever it is, but there is a chance
that it might just happen. We cannot know our future. So, the totally
unexpected does not offer a chance to adjust before it happens. No time to even
imagine the worst. To presuppose the future in the imagination is one thing,
but to live through that moment is quite another. If only I had known. What
would I have done? I cannot know, but that will never happen now.
I had
entered the building totally unaware of what was to come. I had taken the time
to keep my appointment. I had arrived there. A friendly atmosphere. I didn't
have any reasons to not keep this appointment. No feeling of trepidation or
nervousness. I had gone there of my own volition. A routine procedure. If only
I had known. Could I have felt so comfortable? I had removed all metal
materials that I wore and ensured my keys were placed securely away from my
person. I was dressed in a robe as I entered the room and was then asked to lay
down on the bedlike platform. A pale blue blanket was wrapped around me with my
left arm trapped beside me. Velcro tabs were brought together and I heard them
opened and repositioned a couple of times for a good tight fit. I couldn't
move. I realised that the bedlike structure must be a sliding platform. I
hadn't taken much notice. That was unusual. Maybe I was more worried than I
thought I was. This was Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, but I knew there
was nothing to fear from this in itself. It's not nuclear energy in the sense
of atomic energy though it involves atoms of hydrogen. This must be the reason
it is called simply MRI and not NMRI. This could scare some people. The
connection with nuclear could easily be misunderstood. Misinterpreted.
My
glasses had been removed and as I lay down, my head fell back into a holder.
The fit of my head in this holder was snug and ensured a firm grip, but it did
not hurt and was quite comfortable. The first shock came as the cage was
closed. The top half of the head cage swung across my face as the halves were
closed together. I couldn't move at all. My left arm was firmly held beside my
body under the blanket and my head was immovable in this cage. My imagination
created a picture for me since I had no true image of what everything looked like.
The next action puzzled me. A buzzer alarm was placed on my chest. One of those
heavy black cables with a large button at the end. I should press the buzzer if
I needed help. What help might I need? I couldn't imagine. I was soon to find
out.
I was completely
unprepared for what happened next. The tray with me atop of it like a spider's
cocooned victim slid inside the tunnel that my imagination showed me was a very
narrow tunnel. With just enough room it seemed to fit me in. This was the image
I took with me into the MRI machine. I had no other to fix upon. The shock of
being moved into this tunnel nearly overwhelmed me. It was so sudden and
without any warning. Trapped inside a large magnet. A tunnel made with several
tons of concrete or so I thought. My knowledge of the theory of the technology
did nothing to help me. I thought I would scream in terror. It was so sudden
and so shocking. The roof of the tunnel was so close to my face and I pictured
it closing in on me. Ridiculous. But real. This concrete tunnel changed into a
concrete tomb and I had been buried alive unable to move and unable to get out.
I wanted to get out. I wanted to take myself back to 5 minutes ago. Impossible
and irrational.
I
heard a voice through a speaker somewhere saying that the experience would be a
mixture of short and longer pulsed experiments and that they would be noisy.
The longest was 8 minutes as I recall and there would be several shorter ones.
For a total of about 40 minutes. A lifetime. No time would be too long in here.
I was told I would have to endure 40 minutes of this terror. I didn't know what
was meant by noisy, but when it began it sounded like the loud ticking a train
makes in a station as the compressor motors start up. And it was close up to my
good ear! As I lay here looking upwards, I could see that a mirror was
positioned like a periscope to allow me to view down the tunnel and through the
glass window of the control room. This control room seemed a long way off like
looking the wrong way down a telescope. My short sightedness made this mirror
just about useless other than to allow me to make out any slight movement in
the control room. Small comfort, but I felt so terribly alone. I could hardly
breathe and I felt suffocated. My total immobilisation, the noise and closeness
of the circular roof all combined to enhance my terror.
I
started to think desperately hard trying to calm myself down. I was aware that
my own pulse rate had rocketed and my blood pressure felt like it must have
been off the scale. And I had been in here possibly less than a minute. I lay
here silently, totally still, as my mind screamed "Let me out!" To
abort this procedure. But if that happened I would have to come back and do
this all over again up to and beyond this moment. I would just have to be here
again, but in the future. It could only be worse if I had time to think about
it. I might even never return. I had to do this. The very reason I was here. I
didn't know the reasons for my growing problems, but this was supposed to provide
some information to help explain symptoms. To help myself, I talked to myself
silently. A quiet and rational conversation with myself in my mind inside this
noisy and narrow cylindrical hole. Steady breathing. A slow intake of breath
through the nose. Deep into the lower lungs. Allow the stomach to rise. Follow
this with a slow and controlled exhalation through the mouth. Stay calm. I kept
this up for a while. I had an idea how long this was for as I was told that the
next pulse sequence would start shortly. I hadn't noticed the first one had
ended. I reasoned that I had become unaware of the pulsing noise so when it had
stopped I hadn't noticed. I was encouraged though I was still nearly
overwhelmed by my fear. The diversion was working though and it had dulled the
sharp edge of my fear.
The
loud pulsing noise broke the silence as the next sequence started. This would
be an 8 minute experiment I had been informed. The information didn't mean much
though as I had no sense of time. When this sequence had finished, it would
signal that I was 8 minutes closer to the end. I would endure this because I
had to. Until the next sequence that followed. One thing at a time. Stay calm.
Relax. Breathe easy. I can do this. This helped to dull my terror a little more.
Moving slowly to the conclusion though still seemed a long, long way off in the
distance. My pulse was very rapid and my blood pressure seemed to remain high.
At least that's what it felt like. I cycled through a stifling awareness of
where I was and my fears then to an inner calm unaware of anything except my
breathing. Oddly, my breathing seemed very noisy, though that was probably the
pulsing MRI instrument that had swallowed me. The initial shock was over as I
became more accustomed to my new environment. Time had smoothed off some more
rough edges of my fears and every moment I was getting closer to the end of
what I must endure. I can do this. My confidence started to grow even though
the noisy, narrow tunnel still threatened to overwhelm me. I couldn't stop the
image of being in a coffin with the lid closed. Being buried alive in such a
confined place. Unable to move. A sudden wave of terror surged through me. Calm
yourself. Keep breathing. I am not in a coffin and I will be out of here soon,
won't I? Doubts began to cloud my judgement and I began to wonder : have I been
abandonned? How will I get out? I can't move!
Suddenly,
I found myself outside in the room. It seemed as fast as I had entered. A
shock? Exhilaration? To experience utter relief? It was a totally new sensation
of total relief. To be out of there. I couldn't work it out. I was out, but I
still couldn't move. I was told I been brought out of the MRI instrument to
have an injection of a fluid that would help enhance and so clarify the scans.
But I was out of that tomb. Rather comically to me the nurse-technician
couldn't find a suitable vein. They all seemed to have gone into hiding. They
had felt to me like they were motorways under my skin. The pulsing of my fears.
And yet they were not even to be found. Like a frightened animal gone to
ground. I found this terribly funny, but I didn't feel like laughing.
Especially when I saw the needle and syringe. It seemed enormous. Almost the
size of a milk bottle. Of course, it couldn't have been this big, could it? A
doctor was called to do this difficult injection. To try to find a suitable
injection site. To locate a doctor took time and all this time I was lying
there considering my lot. I don't remember what I thought about; it must have
just been the relief of being on the outside of that tunnel. The injection was
done and I was sent back into my tomb just as suddenly as I had been taken from
it. Back into my new home. My own tomb though with a warm feeling circulating
through my body, provided by the injection. This time my stay was quite short.
It was over and then I was out of there. That place.
What I
do know now is that an experience must be experienced to acquire the knowledge
of that experience. It is completely personal. It can never be understood by
reading about it or hearing it described. The value is meaningless to anyone
who has not felt such things. Nothing tangible. Nothing to compare with to even
begin an attempt to explain. I do know now and I can only guess if my reaction
would have been similar to what I actually managed to do. I came through it
all. Everything eventually worked out possibly to the best outcome. I learned a
lot about self-control. About reasoning. About real stress without a crutch to
lean on. Yes, perhaps it could have been worse. Or better? What happened...
well, it happened. I had no control of events, but I did have control of
myself. I probably have more self-control now than before. To have learned. To
have developed my character for the future, which could not now ever be the
same. My present could never have been the same as it is today. This moment.
Much
later I tried a tranquillizer obtained from my doctor since there was a need to
repeat the ordeal in the future. Only this time I would be forewarned. That in
itself is difficult to deal with. That knowledge of what is to come. That it
might be different was difficult to imagine. It may be easier. It may be worse.
I wouldn't know until after I had been there and done it. Again. A half-tablet
did nothing. The next day I tried a whole tablet. This had an effect, but it
was truly awful. I cannot remember feeling so awful ever in my life before that
moment. To be completely bombed. Out of myself. Detached from myself. Somewhere
else. It was worse than that strange feeling of concussion. To exist in a daze.
But this was much worse : to be consumed by time standing still. The next time
I would take my chances and rely on my own will. I had done it before and I'd
do it again. And I'd do it better.
I
think I can understand the terror that must exist for people buried alive under
tons of broken buildings maybe in the aftermath of an earthquake. To be
trapped, buried alive. Not able to move maybe with just enough air to struggle
from breath to breath. And maybe never be brought out. Ever. Only one end.
Eventually. All lived through in absolute terror. Several years ago, when this
was fresh in my memory I could not have written this down. I couldn't sleep on
my back. I couldn't bear to be in closed spaces. To relive in my imagination
what I had experienced. An experience I would never have allowed myself to
endure if I had known what to expect. By not knowing it is too late when it
happens. Sudden. No going back. It's happening. I can only imagine what it
might be like when the parachute you are wearing has not opened. No one can
ever describe the sensation. No options. The only way is down. What terror that
must bring. I do not know a word to describe my imagery. Complete. Absolute.
These words do not even come close. Even infinite is not enough.
I can
only imagine what may happen if we really did know the future. It's
paradoxical: I think none of us could have a future if we knew it. We couldn't
have one. Nothing would ever happen. By not actually knowing the future and
maybe imagining a worst outcome doesn't stop our existence. We do move on.
Maybe nervously. Cautiously. Fearfully. But we do move on. Perhaps that in
itself is a learning. To promote survival by not being reckless. Like it or not
we find out more about ourselves by not knowing. If we did know for certain,
then we wouldn't move on. We would more than likely never have that experience
and so never learn. The experience may offer something that costs nothing, yet
has tremendous value. This is our own perceived value and is unique to the
individual. Priceless.
Try
describing happiness or contentment without having ever experienced either.
© Mark Glanfield 2004