On Monday I had my neck MRI. It took about 40 minutes, including a brief pause in the middle so they could inject me with contrast (more on that later). All weekend, I thought about how I could occupy my mind while I was in there. I had several MRIs during the cancer-time, and my experiences were always better (though never pleasant) if I focused my mind elsewhere. If I didn’t, it was easy to spiral from claustrophobia into full-on panic attack mode, especially if I couldn’t see outside. (Most machines have a mirror attached so you can see the room. I have been in one or two that did not have a mirror, and that was very frightening. It always reminds me of the scene at the end of The Vanishing, when they’re all buried alive in their pods.)

Back in high school, I’d use the time to run through the past season’s marching band routines in my head- every set, every mark, every phrase. (We had a high-level competitive field band, so they were long pieces with a lot of movement.) I found it very comforting to sing the music to myself, visualize my steps, and think about all my friends marching beside me. But those routines are long ago forgotten, and I don’t have anything similar to think about now.

As it turned out, I wasn’t able to use any of the ideas I’d come up with over the weekend, because just before I went in for the procedure, I was told that I couldn’t breastfeed Edwin for 48 hours afterward, because I was receiving the contrast injection. This made me very upset because I hadn’t been told that when I made the appointment, and didn’t have enough supply for 48 hours. Nick and I briefly considered postponing the MRI, but we were too anxious for the results. So I went in, but the whole time I was trying to figure out how to get Edwin through the next two days. It made the whole experience much harder, and when it was over, it felt like I had another huge issue to deal with (more on that in my next post).

I don’t want my ideas to go to waste, though, so here is a list for future reference. If any of you are ever unfortunate enough to need an MRI, PET scan, or other similar procedure, here are some things you can think about:

1. Run the plot of every Harry Potter book or movie, in painstaking detail. If you’re more familiar with another series, like Star Wars or Back to the Future, feel free to use that instead.

2. Make up haiku that have to do with getting an MRI. “Lying in a tube/ How does a person avoid/ Claustrophobia.”

3. Play the alphabet game with yourself, choosing a category to fit your current (probably dark) mood. “A is for anthrax, B is for blunt object, C is for crucifixion…”

4. If your hands and legs aren’t being imaged, tap out the theme song to classic TV shows on your thighs. (“I Dream of Jeannie” can’t help but make you feel better.)

5. Try to decide what you’d do with $1,000,000, eat as a last meal, or answer some other hypothetical question. (For more of these, see my post Universal Questions.)

6. Pray.

While the MRI itself was very unpleasant, it did have a positive result. I got a phone call that very night from my doctor saying that the suspicious lymph node was the same size and shape as it had been in April 2010, and was probably just scar tissue from my long-ago surgeries. I posted on Facebook, “I don’t have cancer!” and got a large and lovely response from everyone. A big thank you to my wonderful community of readers and friends for all of your support during this anxious time!