Ahhhh the dreaded MRI.

2 part blog…

I am anxious today. I have an appointment tonight to have an MRI on my knee. The MRI that will tell me whether or not PVNS is gone… or back… and I am worried. I haven’t talked much about it because I figure people have enough on their plates and, quite frankly, don’t want to burden my family with more things to stress about. But… I am trying to think about all the possible scenarios. I have found myself today… willing my knee to be normal, willing anything that is in there to hide…. Or go away… My instincts have not really given me any direction. I know that my knee is not where I want it to be. But… it is better…so much better than it was. So does that mean that it is gone? Or does it mean that it is mostly gone? Are there degrees of gone when it comes to PVNS? I won’t get the results today. I won’t get the results until I go to my doctor in July. Over a month. Waiting. I have fear about the results of the MRI, but I also have fear about the MRI itself. This will be MRI #4 for me. The first three were painful, very painful, all ending with me in tears. The pain stemmed from having to keep my knee in the same position for an extended amount of time. Before surgery, NOT moving my knee was horrible. There was a delicate balance between finding a painless position and maintaining some movement to prevent my knee from locking up on me and hurting so badly…. So, I am not sure what tonight will entail. Pain? I hope not. Anxiety? Yes. I have tried to be all Zen about it… that it “is what it is”…. That if there are signs that PVNS has returned… it is out of my control… that there is nothing I could have done or could now do to prevent it… and I am also trying to think positively… to will the PVNS away from me…. Maybe I should go back and remove all the p’s, v’s, n’s, a_d s’s from this entry just to be safe… but maybe that is going too far? I just…. want…. good news… good news from a medical test… that has been something very rare in my family recently. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

Post MRI: I arrived at the MRI place well before my scheduled appointment…hoping that if I got there early I may get home in time to see the start of the Celtics game. No such luck. I was the last patient of the day. This MRI experience was the best one yet. I got to choose some tunes to listen to… a nice distraction from the sounds of the MRI machine… so I got to listen to some DMB. Yeah! And… the BEST part. I did not cry because I was not in pain. I kept waiting for the pain to come and it didn’t. My knee got a little stiff after being in that thing for close to an hour, but… it was virtually painless. Yahoo… The radiologist couldn’t give me the results of course… but when I said that it was the best MRI experience yet, she said, well, maybe this is the lucky one. I hope hope hope…. I really am not sure what I will do if it is back.. I cannot go down the PVNS highway again… I just can’t. So… that is behind me. I am trying to unwind from it as I write this… and I think I was more tense than I realized… but it’s over… and now… I just have to wait to get the results. Fingers crossed… check… toes crossed…check… begging the universe for good results… check!

Ok.. something a little deeper… I want to share my experience at the homeless shelter on Sunday. It was a great experience. The thought that was most in the forefront of my mind was.. why have I not done this before? I was not sure what to expect. I arrived well before the meal was going to be served and there were already people gathering outside to get in line. To be completely candid, I worried about leaving my vehicle parked close to a homeless shelter where I knew homeless people would be gathering. There is that snap judgment, a prejudice, a stereotype. Of course something could have happened to my vehicle. But I think that I trusted the intentions of the people who were there. The volunteers were there to help people, and the people needing a meal were there to get food, to accept help from people, not to damage my property.

I was not sure what I would be doing when I got there. I ended up making some PB & J sandwiches. (These are available for people to take with them, to eat later.) Then I helped get some desserts on plates.. but most of my time was spent in the kitchen, putting dishes away after they came out of the dishwasher. They were HOT. It was a hard job in that it was so hot and I had to grab hot dishes and quickly get them stacked and take clean plates and trays out to the part of the cafeteria where the guest were eating. This afforded me the opportunity to have some closer interactions with the people in attendance. My height, was of course, a topic of conversation. I was introduced to some people as security, by a man who runs the facility. After the introduction he told me that next time he introduced me as security I needed to look meaner. Like I said, I mostly stayed in the kitchen, but I did see the people as they came in. People. Not homeless people… people. Young… one as young as maybe 18 months… men, women, children… pregnant women…. People my age…lots of ethnicities…. And I couldn’t help but wonder how many additional people will need this kind of place as our economy continues to suck. I also wonder… for each person who came to lunch that day, how many people who needed lunch didn’t come? Working in the kitchen kept a wall between me and the people who were there to eat. It was very real to me… the need to have a soup kitchen. But… there was still something separating me from them. I found that comforting… and felt guilty for feeling comforted by that. I don’t think that it was about me judging them as much as I wondered about how they would judge me. Would they see me as someone there, volunteering to ease some guilt I have somewhere, to say she had helped people, to make a spectacle of them, or to do something to feel better about her own life? I don’t know… I do know that many people thanked me for being there… volunteers thanked each other and the lunch crowd thanked the volunteers. How close are any of us to needing a place like that shelter for food? One of the volunteers there shared with me that they are not sure how much longer they can provide meals because the food supply is dwindling… sad. How do people survive?

Anyway… I am beat… going to try to relax a little then go t obed and watch the rest of the Celtics game. Go BEANTOWN!