Magnetic Personality

Lying down in a machine being surrounded by very powerful magnets is an odd way to spend a Sunday morning, but that’s what I was up to yesterday.

I don’t know the science behind a MRI scan, but I was a bit disappointed when my GP told me it didn't involve radiation. Having spent a large portion of my childhood reading Marvel comics, I’m of the mind that radiation=superpowers. I had daydreams of being put into a machine, the Doctor suddenly noticing something very wrong, but it’s too late and I emerge with the ability to fly, dodge bullets and the strength of ten tigers. Though I always thought if I was going to be in a comic, it would be as ‘Apathy Man’, whose incredible lack of giving a toss is enough to drain any villain of the will to take over the world.

Alas, it was not to be. Instead, the NHS paid for me to have a much safer option. This involved me having to put on a set of industrial headphones and lying still for 15 minutes, which is a lot harder then you’d think. When I told my old man this, he reckoned that it would be a piece of piss for me, as I’d be used to lying around doing sod all. Very funny, dad. But Playstation controllers don’t move themselves and anyways, the second you’re told you have to be still, you can bet it’s the exact moment your entire body breaks out in numerous itches begging to be scratched.

Once in there, you’re treated to a series of strange noises that make you feel like you’re attending an Einstürzende Neubauten concert inside a coffin. At one point, my foot started moving in a kind of beat (in a kind of ‘stare at a blank wall long enough and you see pictures’ thing), which got the nurse worried for a sec, as she thought I was having another seizure. Thankfully not, and now it’s a case of waiting for the head doctor to study the results and let me know the score. I’m hoping he’ll let me keep whatever picture of my brain he has just to prove (obvious joke alert) to people that I do indeed have one.