I can do this.  I pictured myself relaxed and calm entering the MRI machine.  Yes, I had even practiced by putting my head in dark, enclosed places.  Husband cracked up when I told him I put my head in our small RV closet to practice not being afraid in tight quarters.  Everything was going to be fine.  I was going to fall asleep so the one and a half hours in the scanner would go by faster.

The MRI tech was kind and gentle.  So far, so good.  He wrapped a soft blanket around me.  I relaxed.  He braced my head with soft foam.  Cozy, I thought to myself.  I can do this.  I must have had my eyes closed.  Unexpectedly he placed bars across my face.  I was startled.  I heard the metal click into a receptacle at my ears.  Immobilized.  I’m completely unable to move.  I’m imprisoned.  PANIC.  Irrational, raw fear.  Fear completely possessed me.  I controlled myself enough not to scream or flail like I wanted to.  I wanted to fly apart.  Just thinking about it now 5 days later, my mouth goes dry, my heart pounds.  With all the control I could muster, I hear my voice saying in a normal tone.  “I can’t do it.”  Quickly the tech mercifully removes the bars.  I take a breath.   I take another free breath.  I’m free.  I’m ok.

He kindly suggests that altho we can’t do the neck scan without the device over my face, we could try just the back scan.  Yes, I say, grateful he is patient.  I can do this.  No bars.  I’m fine now.  The soft whir of the bed entering the tunnel.  The lights are low.  I can do this.  Until my head passes the point where I can no longer see the ceiling.  Tightly enclosed, suffocatingly enclosed.  I can’t catch my breath.  I feel like I’m sinking into the depths.  This is what drowning is like.  I don’t want to die or go insane.  I struggle to live… to keep my brain from spinning out of control.  I want to break free.  I speak the words that will release me.  “I can’t do this.”  The mercy of that tech I will always remember.  Immediately I was out.  I wasn’t going to die.  I could breathe again. I was shaking and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.  I wanted to make conversation, but I had to regather my wits.  I was helped to sit up.  I just sat on the edge of the torture bed and hoped I could pull myself together enough to say something sane and walk away under my own power from that dreadful machine.  Walk away from that room that exposed my weakness. Pretend to be normal.  Apparently, I didn’t pull it off very well, because Husband took one look at me as I re-entered the waiting room and got up and took my elbow and steered me toward the door.  I thought I had done a better job of looking nonchalant.  But he informed me later that it was obvious I was a basket case.  Oh, well.  Hiding never helps.

What did I learn from my failed MRI?

I learned I’m weaker mentally and emotionally than I wanted to know.  I thought I was fairly strong, but I was reduced to panic in a matter of seconds.  Not reassuring about my sanity.  It laid bare a lot of fears that were lurking in the shadows.  I have always feared loosing my sanity because family members lost their faculties in old age.  I hadn’t taken the medication my doctor prescribed to calm me because I fear psychotic drugs. I had had an unforgettably horrible experience with hallucinations 20 years ago with the only mood altering drug I had ever used.  I had taken one Zoloft pill which a surgeon had prescribed during a period of continuing pain.  I thought it was a pain reliever, but it was an anti-depressant.  It took me very close to insanity and I never want to go there again.  I never took a mood altering drug again and never returned to the surgeon.  Those short moments of panic with the MRI cast a dark pall over the days since.  My wall of control had cracked.  I feel fragile.  Brittle, actually, like a thin layer of ice on a puddle ready to give way under any weight.  I’m ultra sensitive to enclosed places.  My heart races and my mouth goes dry at small things that make me sad or worried which normally wouldn’t upset me.  I feel that I have only a tenuous grip on my mind and emotions.

I’m learning to be much more compassionate with others who have fears.  I had a hard time empathizing with friends who deal with irrational fears because I felt strong and sane.  But now I’ve been reminded just how quickly I, myself,  succumb to irrational fears.  I hope I don’t forget the consuming darkness that swallowed me in those fearful moments, so I can be patient and gracious to others in their places of fear.  Just today a granddaughter expressed her fear when we used an escalator at the mall.  Because of my own brush with unreasonable fear, I asked her to explain the discomfort she was feeling and I listened patiently and empathetically to her fear of falling brought on by the height and the sometimes awkward transitions entering and exiting the escalator.  Previous to the exposure of my own phobia, I would have ‘poo-poo-ed’ her fear.  She politely reminded me that her fear was just as real to her as my claustrophobia was to me last week.

I realize I’m still in control of my health care.  This may not always be true, but right now I can choose what course my health care takes.  I can say no to medication or procedures that jeopardize my mental, emotional, and physical health.  I alone know my body and mind.  I can stand up for myself.  I have options about what and how, or if I should get the scans needed to inform further treatment.

I realized how powerful it is to have a loving spouse who, altho he can’t empathize, does sympathize.  He is my rock.  When sadness, fear, or panic threaten to undo me, he is ready to hold me and pray for me with gentleness and faith.  I owe him my sanity on more than one occasion.  When the Zoloft sent me into a dark spiral of hallucinations and self-destructive thoughts, he held me and prayed for me.  A few nights ago, he again came to my aid when the horror hovered and hissed over me.  In the darkness, his presence and prayer of faith on my behalf brought me back from the edge.  His faith, love, and calmness are God’s gift to me.

I know that when courage fails me, I can rest in the arms of Jesus.  I hear him reassuring me, “Snuggle up to me.  My strength is perfected in your weakness.  When you aren’t strong, I will be strong for you.  And others will recognize I’m carrying you beyond where you could go yourself.  I knit you together in the womb.  I used weak threads among the strong ones because weakness is a better teacher than strength.  I understand your weaknesses and I won’t reject you or scold you.  You are safe in my arms.”

Where are the dark places where your fear ambushes you and steals your control?  Are you learning to lean into Jesus in those times?

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  King David in Psalm 139:13

“…he (Jesus) said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me.”  Paul, the apostle, in 2 Corinthians 12:9

“But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.”  Paul writing to young Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:17

“I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”  Jesus as recorded in Revelation 3:8