# rsi mri techno-nightmares yesterday i travelled to the local hospital for a mri scan of my painful rsi shoulder - and i tell you what fellow travellers the experience was utterly horrible despite the tremendously friendly and professional staff i met there that rainy day i got treated like every other patient does in the nhs - merely like another number that needs processing; like any other slab of random uk-public meat which needs scientifically tenderising under a giant magnet i mean they didn't even know why i was there until i told them - "um it's for my shoulder" and then the head doctor asked "which one" which one - the one sticking out of the top of my idiot skull - ie for imagining these clowns of the circus system that is the mighty nhs even remotely know or care what's going on with (what should be) the most important person at the heart of ir miserable practice: the patient does nobody keep any damn notes in this whole desperate shedhouse does the right hand even know of the *existence* of the left - after all the consultations referrals and hours on the phone with handfuls of different doctors - shirley there's enough broody data on what's going on with my rsi no less than five to eight minutes after they called my name i had been unceremoniously shoved into a machine of terrifying mass capabilities and advanced technological design which was over the next (roughly) four sets of three minutes to induce high blood pressure claustrophobia frozen limbs and bad arm cramp once again i go in for so-called 'treatment' - that is more bs 'exploratory fact-finding' and 'initial rounds of data-gathering' - and end up feeling in even more pain then before i'd arrived **+** they never once asked me about the actual condition - you know the actual darn reason for even having the scan in the first place - only that it was taking place (and apparently this seems more than enough to please the nhs droids) **+** they never asked me if i was in any actual pain - which i was at the time **+** without them ever asking i told then i had bad rsi but this fact didn't seem to register at all; all they wanted to know was if dr. frankenstein had recently installed a giant bolt through my neck that would severely screw with ir precious giant magnet machine **+** at absolutely no point from the time the doctor referred me for a scan to the moment i landed up inside the electronic and nuclear-physics level insides of the giant machine - a place and experience i now term "the infinite office" - was i informed what the whole damn deal would consist of ie how horrible it would be this is probably with good reason because if the staff went around clearly explaining to patients just how awful (physically uncomfortable and mentally oppressive) it is inside the mri scanner nobody in ir right mind would get inside it even if paid cash beforehand so i'm in this longish white tube which isn't too long - one can kinda see both ends of it; the whole room feels cold and sterile but when the machine starts to fire up to take its series of scans cold air is feels like it's being actively pumped down the tube - and it's utterly horrible like the wind from some open technologically advanced near-future dystopian beyond; you soon start to feel like you're internal essential chi-energies are being sucked dry they stuck a miserable thin blanket over me along with some headphones - both with disturbing speed and efficiency mind you; not only did they perform these actions like they had a shit-load of patients to get through that day (which they probably did) but it was like they knew what was coming and just wanted to get the hell outa there with all due haste and terminal robot-like efficiency i meanwhile just thought oh headphones and a blanket - how very thoughtful; how naive i was - the baskets even asked me what i wanted to hear and i said 'classical' once fed deep into the machine however i immediately felt somewhat tense - even ill with anticipation; i immediately understood this place was claustrophobic enough to cause real panic but tried to ignore it when they switched the physics beast on for the first time the music was so loud it was deafening and i wanted to tear the headphones off - i squeezed ir 'panic blub' as hard as i could and shortly a nurse appeared at the end of the tube i immediately told ir that the music was utterly deafening (which it was) and asked ir to just turn it off they seemed annoyed and told me "you definitely need ear protection though" and i said "sure fine" so the procedure continued ii. the sound of the infinite office the worse thing about the entire procedure was the noise; it was a true sonic attack - a hawkwind concert in space gone terribly wrong - stuck inside a crashing spinning rocketship straight to techn0-hell how even to describe it; imagine an abandoned aircraft hanger from ww2 in gleaming white; this one has been converted into an office - stretching away into the infinite distance upon each desk is a hard graphite pencil a metal ruler and a bakelite telephone the infinite white tube-office is also a wind tunnel; and you are stuck inside it you poor schmuck and when the machine starts up you begin to be deafened - for it's as though every pencil on every desk stretching out to forever is being tapped on that desk; every ruler on every desk is being rapped on the edge of its desk by unseen hands - and every single telephone in the entire hanger is ringing this utter cacophony of 'jackhammer-loud next to your ear' industrial noise is totally and utterly overwhelming and confounding; your whole mind is instantly overcome by its pressure and dread-ful sonic insistence the last noise i was around which was that loud was at the very last concert of the emf (deadpan: 'it was unbelievable') where the sound wave pressure of the giant speakers they had at the front of the hall were *hurting my chest while standing at back of the hall* - yet there were dozens of idiots dancing right up next to the speakers (the poor baskets must be utterly without hearing nowadays) and this horrible giant magnet-machine seemed almost as loud as that; i started to freak out by all this but felt embarrassed to admit my fear - i knew exactly why i was there and that this scan was important but i just didn't know for how long i could stand this at one moment toward the end however i almost started to cry - to almost scream "get me the out of this flocking machine" (no doubt a common-enough sentiment within 21st century global hyperreal ludocapitalist neurospectacle) i only survived mentally through willing myself to 'relax harder' as they say in tai chi - combined with systema 'breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth' - and of thinking of absolutely nothing at all nothing worked however and roughly twelve to fifteen minutes spent in that infernal machine seemed like hours - when the nurse in charge said "ok we're finished know" every part of me felt *worse* during the 1 remaining minute it took them to finally pull me out of there they had to help me up as my arm and back and neck were on fire with the pain of the cold air and not being able to move an inch; i just sat up closed my eyes and tried not to cry it had been so traumatic; "is everything alright" they asked and i said "no - that was utterly horrible i'm never doing that again - and i'm also cancelling my next appointment" the staff however seemed genuinely baffled at why anyone would find such an technological experience physically threatening immensely uncomfortable and mentally taxing (abusive is more like it) and they just stared at me like idiots one of the nurses tried to comfort me by saying (or was it simply admitting) that "don't worry - many of our patients find it uncomfortable" - to which i thought "no shit i bet they do - shame you hadn't informed me earlier" the infinite office - kinda like being brain-scanned by violently-disinterested and impartial aliens who are only after 'more data' and don't particularly give two synthetic sheds if you're freaking out and having a heart attack due to the negative effects of ir giant evil science magnet (since i do suffer from high blood pressure it might have been in everyone's interest if they took this small fact into account before ultramagnet-scanning my stupid space-monkey fleshbag) i half-staggered back to my locker for my coat belt wallet watch - and the rest of my tattered sanity if it was in there in the foyer and waiting room of the mri department i gulped three (equally freezing) cups of water and tried to gather my wits - i just couldn't really believe what i'd just been through - a raw psychic attack by some kind of giant mechanism - or rather i'd entered a non-dimensional place in the collective biocosmic unconscious termed "the infinite office" monday morning i called them up first thing and cancelled the mri scan for my spine; the kind nurse who answered was the same who'd shoved me into the giant alien interrogation magnet-device they suggested "for the next scan we can always give you something to relax you before hand" but the only thing i could immediately think of was (paraphrasing) "yeah - something which would relax me would be the fantastic news that friendly forces had successfully destroyed the entire facility from low-orbit and that now all future appointments were cancelled" i might get a "i survived an mri alien brain scan" tshirt with "if they ask for an mri say flock that noise *no*" on the back walking out of the department in a daze it started to wreck it down and i breathed in the clean air and stated at the greenery of the trees and the fresh grey racing clouds and i honestly felt glad to be alive - truly thankful for the relief of leaving that terrible machine which in many ways represents the sterile soulless anonymity and robotic scientific indifference of the nhs as a whole / dimensional hole my arm back and neck hurt for the rest of the day; i finally got home and slept like i'd been giant alien magnet-probed // republic of bob