(This blog has moved.  To read the whole entry and read future posts, please go to the following link and either bookmark it or subscribe by clicking "RSS feed".  Thank you!  www.michelephoenix.com/blog)

The question of the day, two weeks ago, was:  does Michèle have brain cancer?  It was a question to which I was rather eager to have an answer...and before Christmas, if possible!

I took the fact that we passed a McDonald’s on the way to the IMAMED clinic in Switzerland to be a sign from God.  I can get through just about anything if there’s a hamburger in my immediate future.  I tried to explain that fact to the sweet Swiss nurse as she inserted an IV needle into my arm, but I don’t think she shared my enthusiasm.

MRI’s are scary things.  I’d seen them on TV shows often enough to know that they would not be my friend.  I’m a big fan of open spaces and moving air.  Small, closed-ended tunnels with no oxygen circulating and 8 inches of space between my nose and the wall above me?  Not my thing.  I’d managed to find what they call an “open” machine just 45 minutes away from my home, but a glance at the contraption made me wonder just how different the definition of “open” is in a Swiss dictionary.

Let me describe it in terms that resonate (pun intended) with me.  The MRI machine was like a giant hamburger bun—about 7 feet in diameter.  And I was the nervous and rather skeptical “hot dog” the lovely nurse planned on wheeling into the giant bun before lowering the upper half to within inches of my face.  It didn't really matter that it was open on two sides, as my head had to be facing straight up!  I took slow, calming breaths as she strapped a brace over my head, injected fluids into my IV, placed an emergency button in my left hand, and wheeled me into the machine.  It was all I could do to resist the urge to test the emergency button before she’d even left the room…

I tried to breathe evenly, told myself to think of alpine pastures and vast horizons and began to sing “Jesus Loves Me” in my head while trying very hard to ignore the solid wall that hovered way too close to my open eyes (closing them made the claustrophobia worse).  The nurse had warned me that it would be loud.  That was a bit of an understatement, as it turned out.  Within the first seconds of my 22-minute ordeal, I was convinced that an army of jackhammer-wielding Swiss men in lederhosen was laboring above me, occasionally substituting sledge hammers for the jackhammers that seemed to be coming from inside my brain..........

(Blog post continued here:  http://michelephoenix.com/2009/12/swallowed-alive/)

Click on the arrow below to watch/hear an updated version of my McJourney video.  The photos are mostly the same, but my song has had a facelift thanks to my brother's band.  They recorded a new accompaniment with *real* instruments and I re-recorded the vocals.