She turned to me, swathed in white blanket, her greyish-white, tossled, sleepy-haired head tilted to the side with a questioning glance. She looked up at Shannon. His brown eyes gazed down in a smile. "Don't you worry 'bout her, Ma'm. Sara's just been misbehaving today. That's why she's back here. Now you come along with me." He pulled her into the next room, out of my line of sight. She sighed a worried sound, one corner of her mouth turned up, the other down, as her gurney disappeared through the doorway. I pulled my warm, sterile blanket up around my chin, then up to my ears, inhaled and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was staring at the ceiling, the florescent lights shaded by in intricate grate I'd not expected in this ancient department of the hospital. One row of big circles one row of small, one of big, one of small, and so forth, creating this beautiful, dizzying, dim pattern. The MRI tech pulled me into the next room. He helped me off of my stretcher and onto the little pallet. He handed me a pair of earplugs. I slowly laid back as he fasted the frame around my head and tucked the blanket around my feet. As the pallet sowly moved backward, my eyes followed the two lines of light above my head, in front of my face. Light blue, restful. My right hand, tense and apprehensive, finally calm. I closed my eyes as the familiar clicks began. I couldn't help but think, drifting in and out of the harsh sounds of the MRI, thebuzzbuzzbuzz, clickclick, buzzbuzzbuzzbuzz, how these uneven rhythms had a place somewhere, in a distortion art noise project by Lance, in the back corner of a Vanderslice song, in rolling of my everyday...everything.
They would find nothing. No new lesions, all clear. The pain would be ruled a muscle strain.
Tonight we will all sleep soundly. I will dream with a curling happy brow. I know now that all I need is rest. All I can think of now, beyond everything else, beyond any pain or discomfort is that in truth, I'm okay. Three years in remission and many more to come.
On Tuesday, the girls and I will pack up Ella, my Honda, and depart on our greatest adventure. SXSW. I can't even begin to tell you how ecstatic I am at this moment.
I'm really happy right now.
Amber and Will. Thanks for the chocolate milk and the cadbury eggs you brought to the ER. They made this little victory that much sweeter.
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