08/02/2023
By Kate Stone Lombardi
Every year, I get a breast MRI, because I’m at high-risk for breast cancer. It’s not the most pleasant 25 minutes, but I’m grateful the technology exists to get such a detailed screening.
For this scan, you need to be flat on your stomach, arms in Superwoman position, and the technician informs you to stay completely still and to breathe normally. Right. Relax, but without deep breathing, while you are wondering if you have managed to dodge a bullet for another year.
Anyway, they were kind enough to offer me my choice of music, and gave me headphones to mute the banging and clanging sounds that accompany the MRI. I asked for a “mellow 1970s” playlist. They roll me into the machine – always delightful when the IV that carries the contrast dye gets caught on a side panel and pulls out – and, after regrouping, ask me if I’m ready. I tell them I am, hear some whirring noises and then the music began.
The mellow song? “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC.
The next song, while not a heavy metal tribute to impending doom, was still not exactly appropriate. Who wants to listen to Stealers Wheals singing “Stuck in the Middle With You” while enclosed in an MRI machine, trying to remain completely still?
Next time, I think I’ll ask for classical music.