Little Miracles

May 1, 2022

At my first MRI with Polyclinic, they asked if I would like to listen to music, which I declined. The scan wasn't very long, and I'd had an MRI once before. They gave me earplugs and headphones to muffle the sounds of the MRI machine (the noise would be deafeningly loud without them). I sort of enjoyed listening to the various beeps, taps, and buzzes at a reasonable volume. The nurse that helped me said I could leave my wedding ring on, which vibrated pleasantly with the rhythmic sounds of the machine. 

We didn't really know anything at the time, so this MRI seemed like a precautionary measure, taken in order to rule out anything serious.

 I was rather optimistic and chipper, so I commented to the nurse after my scan that the machine's noises sounded like dub-step music. He laughed and agreed, although he'd never heard that before.

"Most of the time," he said, "our patients don't know what dub-step is."

My subsequent MRI's were done at Swedish, where music was not offered. I didn't really care at first, until I had to do a head and neck scan with spectroscopy, which meant I had to stay still inside that loud, claustrophobia-inducing machine for over an hour. My neck was already perpetually stiff, so laying on my back with my head in one position for a long time was uncomfortable. They told me through my headphones how long each image would take, but not how much longer I would be in there. This time, the machine reminded me of an old computer perpetually dialing up the internet.

I didn't think to use the bathroom beforehand, so I had to pee like a racehorse by the end. I was too embarrassed to squeeze the little rubber pump they give you in case of an emergency. 

Several weeks ago, my oncologist Dr. Graber asked if my surgeon had mentioned the "spot" on my post-surgery MRI. Confused, I said no. I remembered Matt telling me that right after my surgery, Dr. Cobbs had told him that nothing about the T-word had changed. 

"There's what we call an enhancement," Dr. Graber said, "Which could just be a leaky blood vessel, or an indication that the C-word has spread." 

I was kind of annoyed, but I was also just tired of thinking about things. So it didn't bother me as much as it normally would have. 

Maybe it didn't work the first time, but I tried to use positive thinking anyway. At night, I vividly imagined the doctor telling me that the spot had disappeared.

My last MRI at UW only lasted 20 minutes. After I undressed and put on their loose pants and a gown, they had me wait behind a curtain in stall number nine. At first, I had the sheet open, so the staff walking down the hall towards me would sometimes make eye contact. I would think they were coming to take me back to the MRI room, but they would just pass me. That was a bit awkward, so I drew the curtain closed. 

 After this mini-bout of boredom, a nurse with an Australian accent came to administer my IV. It was more painful and took longer than usual. She asked if there was any pain where the IV was.

"Only a little," I said, thinking that the job was done.

 "Let's try that again," she said, and took it out in order to poke me on the other arm. The imperfect IV left an obvious yellow and blue bruise on the skin above my right elbow.

The Australian nurse took me to a seat near the MRI room where I waited a few more minutes. Another nurse led me into the room, where upbeat music was playing on the speakers. She asked me what kind of music I would like to listen to, and I was happy to get that question.

"Something relaxing," I said. 

They played calm, meditative music while the MRI machine rang and banged in the background. Although the music didn't completely drown out the noise, it was nice to hear the music between the machine's less palatable sounds. I tried my best to meditate one more time on what the radiologist would say. "We can't explain it. The spot has disappeared!" I imagined the relief that Matt and I would feel; the confirmation that our positive intentions had worked.

After eating some food in the cafeteria, Matt and I made our way to my next appointment with the radiologist. Her name was Dr. Halasz, pronounced like "Alice" but with an H at the front. After knocking gently, coming in, and introducing herself, she addressed the scan. 

In short, the spot had disappeared. She showed us some images of the scan right after my surgery next to the scan I had just had. She pointed out the spot on the left, showing a cross-section of my brain from above. A small dot, lighter than the tissue around it, connected to my T-word with a faded line. In the image on the right, there was just a dark and empty space where the spot had been. 

She said that they couldn't figure out why it was gone.

Matt and I smiled behind our masks and shot quick but knowing looks into each others' eyes. I was shocked by the results, not only because they are what we had hoped for, but because she used some of the exact words I did in my imagination. She also said that there was no change in the T-word.

Around two weeks ago, Matt exclaimed to me that one of the tulips in our garden had two buds. I looked outside our kitchen window to see a single green stem split only a couple of centimeters below two well-formed florets. The twins bloomed with elegant yellowish-white petals a few days later.

He told a friend at work about this, who said that it was a good omen. My sister and a friend said the same when I posted a picture on social media. I'd never heard that before.

I don't think I'm very superstitious, but it's an interesting coincidence that it happened just before my scan. 

Maybe the spot's disappearance is a small thing to some people. Maybe it was just dumb luck. But Matt and I have chosen to believe that we witnessed a miracle... one of many to come.

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