Dain Bramage

I've recently gone through a series of uncomfortable medical procedures. Fortunately they were only mentally uncomfortable and physically I'm doing fine. I had an exertional headache a few weeks ago. I hadn't had one in 12 years, but at that point they were pretty common for me. The doctor sent me to get an MRI to make sure I didn't have an aneurysm although I was pretty sure that wasn't the case. They asked me 4 times before I went into this thing if I was claustrophobic, and while I'm not I started to think I was b/c they kept asking. I spent about 45 minutes laying on my back inside this machine. At first I closed my eyes b/c you can't really see anything in there and thinking about being confined in this space was kind of creeping me out. After a while, I was pretty bored and started thinking of it in terms of 2001 and started to embrace my situation. The industrial noises are pretty loud in there and it's constantly pumping air into the tube, so I started pretending I was at a Kraftwerk concert. It made the time pass quicker although the technician wouldn't let the machine encore w/ Trans Europe Express. After waiting a few days for the results, I called the doctor's office. They said they were still waiting for the results. A few hours later the actual doctor called me to tell me he was setting up an appointment w/ a neurologist. This wasn't what I wanted to hear on a Friday afternoon. I spent the whole weekend wondering what could be worse than brain cancer. I finally settled on inoperable brain cancer. At the neurologist they made me change into a gown which seemed a little unusual, but by the time I actually saw the doctor she said that I had a scar on my brain. However, it's not a big deal and she gave me some migraine medicine samples to try out. Then she offered to show me the MRI images. I figured I wouldn't have too many opportunities to see this kind of stuff, so I listened to her explain how this artery went where and I got to see my scar. I think my brain didn't want me to understand how it functions, and I don't want it to hurt me anymore so I didn't learn a whole lot about neurology. Anyway, all is back to normal pretty much and I have a whole new appreciation for the classic hangover headache.