Fun at the hospital

     Uncle Jack had his annual heart check-up a couple of weeks ago, his first at Johns Hopkins Medical Center after seven trips to see a couple of different cardiologists at Duke.  It was the Duke doctors who first diagnosed his heart condition as something called "cardiomyopathy" which he understands to be a kind of umbrella term for situations in which the heart is not pumping a normal amount of blood into the arteries.
    Uncle Jack's problem was revealed by the first of numerous "echocardiograms" (one each year for the past eight)  and his condition has been monitored by use of that device ever since.  He has been taking a couple of medications during this time, getting regular exercise and eating sensibly and the "echos" have consistently shown improvement in his heart function, much to his delight.
    An echocardiogram is a fairly simple procedure involving a technician with cold fingers moving a small transponder around from one place to another on the subject's chest and back to obtain a computerized picture of what is going on in the heart area.  It's "quick and dirty" but it usually provides a sufficient amount of information for the cardiologist to tell what's going on in there.
    His new doctor, a distinguished heart surgeon named Stuart Russell, was not entirely satisfied with his last "echo", however, so he set Uncle Jack up for an MRI which would give him a much clearer picture of his heart and surrounding tissue.  He reported to the MRI facility in the old Johns Hopkins Hospital building at 5 p.m. last evening and at the ripe old age of 79 underwent his first bout of Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
     It was a trip.  By the time it was over he felt like he had just appeared in an episode of  "Star Wars", surrounded as he was by some of the most exotic machinery he has ever interacted with.  The MRI machine is essentially a big round magnet into which he was rolled on a flat platform after being strapped in and hooked up to a dozen wires.  Inside the magnet his face was perhaps two inches from the top surface which at first produced strong feelings of claustrophobia which he dealt with by shutting his eyes and keeping them shut for most of the half-hour it took to complete the procedure.
     "Take a breath and hold it--------now breathe."  This mantra, repeated dozens of times by the technician, became exceedingly boring after the first five minutes but the machine itself provided some entertainment by emitting a variety of honks, squeaks, buzzes, hums and clicks as it did its expensive thing.  As one would expect  from the best hospital in the U.S. the entire procedure from scheduling to completion was carried out with a high level of professionalism.  The scan was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and that is precisely the time he was rolled into the monster machine.  Lucky for Uncle Jack this splendid hospital is only ten minutes by Mini from his condo which will come in handy when he gets the bill and suffers his first heart attack.