My MRI shows nothing.
The proof of this, the ability to see it, is another order of magnitude beyond me than the skill to read my X-ray already was. I questioned the radiologist thoroughly–his happy beam at delivering good news wilting under my assault, my disbelief–and then dumped the images across my orthopedist’s desk and sulked in his chair while he confirmed it. Inflammation, he said confidently, would light up the film like a Christmas tree, and there are no fractures, either.
Nick has been reminding me all week that he once had a three-inch bone spur that didn’t show up on any scans at all, that was nothing until they cut the ankle open and saw it in visible-spectrum light. I alternately find this comforting and terrifying.
“I think I mentioned, but didn’t show you,” I told my doctor firmly, and led the way to his exam room where I hopped onto the table and showed him the marks. I have a large shadow shaped like a thick check-mark on my left shin, a tiny echoing spot in the same place on the right one. Both are located exactly where the bulk of the pain is: real pain on the left side, and a little twinge I would never bother a doctor about on the right. I’ve spent two months ignoring the larger one on the left: calling it a chill from all the ice, irritation from the wrapping, a regular transitory bruise, or a figment. Even when I began to see the complementary one on the right I brushed it off until last night, when the pressure of a negative MRI and the specter of hypochondria forced me to ask Nick if the bruises were just in my head.
He saw the large one on the left, but disagreed about the right side. Fine; one for two. Fifty percent is better than crazy. Interestingly, my doctor saw the right-hand one clearly but wasn’t convinced there was anything on my left leg at all. The color on both shifts, and today it was just a very pale grayish something I can’t really blame him for not seeing, but still: it’s a little tempting to put both of them in the same room and shout a lot.
Still, though, my orthopedist maintained: this is not a local issue. He believes in the MRI; he is sure. “Have you ever had any back problems? Sciatic issues, or–”
“Or a partially herniated disc?”
I said that in English. I don’t know how to say that in French. This, I thought at the time, is exactly why I have always been quite sure I could never practice psychology in France: how the hell are you supposed to know how to prepare, what to look up in advance? I told the other doctor in my preliminary consult about my back, but he waved it off, said it wasn’t the type of pre-existing conditions he’d meant. I never thought to look it up.
Fortunately, my doctor can speak English, even though he doesn’t.
He started grilling me about tests: did I ever have a scan, or an MRI?
“An MRI.”
“Yes,” he snapped impatiently, waving at my leg. “But for your back?”
“Yes,” I repeated.
“A scan?”
“An MRI. Forty-five minutes headfirst; it sucked.”
“No, but for your back, before!”
“Yes, eight years ago!” (He thinks they stuffed me in headfirst for my shin? It’s France; they didn’t even make me change into a gown. Just traded my shoes for those little paper airport booties and slid in.)
“You had a scan?”
“An MRI.”
“This week, yes, but I mean eight years ago.”
If this guy fixes me without exploratory surgery or large needles, I’m getting him a copy of Who’s On First as a thank-you.
But it wasn’t until he asked that I remembered why I had gone cringing into Health Services for that first MRI eight (nine?) years ago in the first place: because my legs hurt. It was completely different, of course: radiating sparkling pain that trickled down my thigh-bones and then flared and died in my ankles, skipping my shins almost entirely. It was nothing like shinsplints, nothing like impact, nothing like stress damage. If it had been, I wouldn’t have seen a doctor, because I don’t see doctors when I think I know what’s wrong, just like I didn’t plan to until a month ago when Nick put his foot down about this. My point is that there was no reason for me to have associated the two, but when you say the whole thing out loud I sound suspiciously like an idiot.
Speaking of which: no, I never did the rehab I was supposed to the first time around. I remember all of you warning me–you in particular, Sandy, insisting that I do something before there was a real problem–so maybe there’s a good reason that I’m coming off like an idiot now.
Long story short: CT scan of my spine tomorrow afternoon. Can’t hardly wait.