"THE" hip day

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.......


Mark Twain

Moving along

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

Mark Twain

Thinking about it

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Oscar Wilde

Countdown to Hip (H)op Two

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Franklin D Roosevelt

There is a light at the end of the tunnel ...

…and it isn’t a train coming through!

We have been watching Le Tour, and there has been a lot of talk about the HTC train. To those of you not watching the TV from 10pm until 1.30 in the morning – Australian time (it even made the back page of the Financial Review during the week – tired executives dragging themselves to the office and surviving on caffeine, hanging out for the rest day), “the train” is the group of riders in the HTC Highroad Team who lead out the Manx Missile at the end of each flat stage of the Tour de France.

Confused?

Anyway, about that tunnel …
Some of you may remember my hip replacement 18 months ago, when I posted about the humorous side of the surgery and recovery.

Well the current update is that I (and 9999 others in Australia alone) are looking at having the prosthesis replaced. I won’t go into a lot of detail right now, suffice it to say it has to be done, and reasonably soon.

One of the tests I needed to have was a MRI. Easy you say, just go and have it done. That is what I thought too. First hurdle – the MRI machine here had been broken and when fixed, the queue was rather large … So, as I was going to Adelaide to a birthday party, why not have it done while I was down there?

Great idea; so the plans were made.

I turned up rather enthusiastically at the medical centre and eventually get taken into the room for the MRI. They got me on the table and strapped me in, put on earmuffs to dull the sound (I didn’t know about that – innocent ignorance) and then they started to roll me into the tunnel. My nose wass about 4 cm from the tunnel above me. Wait a minute, it didn’t look like it would be that close when you put me on the table. Oh, you raised it about 50cm after I was on it? And you want me to stay in that tiny tunnel for 40 minutes? And I can’t even see a light at the end of the tunnel? Oh, did I tell you that I am slightly (well I though slightly until then) claustrophobic?

GET ME OUT OF HERE! NOW!

Thank goodness they had given me an exit button! I was removed very quickly. Have you ever been close to anyone who is claustrophobic and put under pressure? mmmmmmm … not a pretty picture.

We all survived. Even the MRI machine.

I didn’t have the MRI. This is not good.

I had an XRay and and ultrasound; but they are not really conclusive and they need a MRI.

There are options. I won’t go into them here, but they seem a bit of overkill to those who aren’t claustrophobic. I am.

Further investigation was required.

After being told the machine here is different, today I was able to visit it and have a “test ride.”

They were correct. It is different and thank goodness, I was able to have my MRI.

Above me there was a tiny light. I just listened to the provided music – stuff I would usually only listen to when I was doing a pretty heavy workout at the gym – watched that light to make sure it wasn’t a train coming through the tunnel to get me (the poor damsel strapped to the track), breathed in and out at regular intervals and survived the experience.

Thank you very much – you know who you are.

Perplexity