For any of you that watched Seinfeld in the good old days, the subject line of this post refers to the day Kramer lathered himself in butter to tan on the roof and fell asleep.  Many references were made to the smell of roasted turkey coming from the roof and Newman spent most of the day chasing Kramer through the hallways of their apartment building armed with a knife and fork.

I now have some frame of reference to what a turkey feels like when it is pulled from the oven.  Today, I had my first ever M.R.I. to determine what I have done to my knee.  For those unaware of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the process is similar to taking a meat product and shoving into a casing to create a sausage.  A human body is robed in the flattering hospital gown and pants and thrust into an opening barely large enough to contain said body.  For twenty to thirty minutes, the owner of the body must remain perfectly motionless for the imaging to be successful.

(image credit:  howstuffworks.com)

Precautions are taken to restrict any movement of the part being scanned and a call button is placed in the hand of the subject waiting to enter the tunnel in case of any discomfort or panic.  Thankfully I did not experience either of those.  With a knee scan, the head remains outside of the enclosure and the orb surrounds only the parts deemed necessary for imaging.

Ear plugs are inserted to mute the throbbing noise created by the imaging machine and dulcet tones are played to mask the sound of technology.  The soothing sounds of The Eagles helped to transport me to that hotel in California where you can check out any time you want but you can never leave, but the DJ followed up with James Brown’s “I Feel Good” and it was painful to remain still.  Who doesn’t want to move when you hear that song?

The machine hummed and pulsated.  The tube resonated with the sounds of helium-suspended-magnets as bursts of radio frequencies were bounced from my flesh back to a computer where the images would be recorded for posterity and diagnosis.  The heat in the tube increased and my body temperature spiked.  Beads of sweat trickled from my brow and finally the timer sounded.  My M.R.I. was over and dinner was served.   If only I’d thought to prepare myself with some butter, salt and pepper.  Thankfully nobody chased me down the corridors of the hospital with a knife and fork!