"An MRI Experience That Turned Out Good"

I have a few medical problems that creep up from time to time.  It will surprise some of you that they center around my brain!  See some are surprised to know I even have a brain.  Thanks to those of you in that camp. I will give you a second to contain yourselves.  This morning I had to have a doctor ordered MRI on my (here it is guys) brain!  I HATE MRI’s.  The noise in those things is about deafening.  It is really tight in those contraptions too.  You have to wear something akin to a football helmet…at least the facemask anyway.  You are almost constantly admonished to “not move.” Did I mention I HATE MRI’s??  Thirty minutes of no movement.
 
Today as I was in there my ear started to itch and so did my eye.  I WOULD say it was a mental thing but since some of you have already decided I have no brain I won’t even bother.  An itching eye and an itching ear are pesky anyway but when you can’t move to scratch it let me promise you IT IS WORSE!  And so with about 17 minutes left to go in this gigantic electronic “coffin” the thought hit me to pray.  Of course I thanked God that NONE of my children have ever been in one of these things!  That got me to thinking that they have never been diagnosed with any type of life threatening disease.  The one that was thus far told she could never have children is the mother of our two award winning grand babies…#butGod!!!  Our son sings with us now and does a great job.  He has become a wonderful songwriter and is the Worship Pastor at our church!  The girls have married two very decent young men who have made me a proud father-in-law.  By now I’m thinking to myself I can’t shout in this machine!  I can’t move!  But I am shouting in my soul!!  Back to the eye and ear itch…  I began to think about people I know who have those itch’s all the time and because of the inability to move they CAN’T do anything at all about it!  They are at someone else’s mercy for something this small.  I’m not one of them!  In just a few minutes I will scratch to my heart’s content!

When the lady who administered the MRI got me out she came to help me off the table.  She reached to help me stand up and apologized that she could only help me with one arm because she was lame in her other one.  I raised both of mine and kicked one of my feet to make up for her bad arm and rather loudly proclaimed “glory” because BOTH of my arms are attached and working!  She asked me why I was so happy and I told her what I have now written here.  SHE said “glory?”  She told me that” everybody who comes out of this thing comes out complaining about their experience”   She continued “I have a major appendage that just doesn’t work and I praise the Lord for the one that does!  I’m glad you’re happy today…you blessed me!”  It just reminds me…are you a whiner…a complainer or a praiser?  Which one am I?  I used my time in the “electronic coffin” (did I mention I hate MRI’s) to turn this thing around.  My mentor and longtime friend Dr. Jerry Goff penned it best when he wrote… “I am blessed, I am blessed!  Every day that I live I am blessed!  When I wake up in the morning till I lay my head to rest…I am blessed…I am blessed!! 
 
Jeff

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