Breathing Easy

I've always kind of liked MRIs. After they slide me into the tube and set everything to clanking and grinding, I tend to hallucinate. That's why I wasn't much worried about this latest one, which was scheduled smack in the middle of a recent array of medical tests.

The appointment was set for 10:30 on a Tuesday. I arrived a few minutes early, checked in at the desk, took a seat and stared at my hands. As best as I could, I ignored the blaring television hanging from the ceiling to my left. There were half a dozen others in there with me, most of them elderly, all of them staring at their own hands. All the waiting rooms I'd been in lately, it seems, had been crowded with the elderly.

Ten minutes passed, then the secretary stood and approached me.

"I'm sorry for the wait," she said, "but the MRI machine isn't working right. Some guys are working on it now, and in about 20 minutes or so, we'll know if maybe they can get it fixed. If they can, you can go right in. If not, we'll have to reschedule."

Some guys? I thought with mild consternation as I nodded to her and said, "Oh. Okay."

"Is that the same machine I'M going on?!" the man next to me blurted suddenly, his terrified voice high and shrill.

It turned out he was there for a CAT scan, not an MRI, and that I was the only lucky one in the room who might get to try out the iffy device.

I began considering the possibilities. Sure, it might suck a vacuum cleaner from across the room and impale me. It might possibly leave me with stomach cancer. There was always that chance, too, that it could melt my brain through my nostrils. But it might just as likely leave me with super-powers! Bad ones, no doubt-the ability to walk on my toes over great distances, or smell the future-but superpowers nevertheless.

I knew it was a stretch, but hey. I began thinking that maybe giving the iffy MRI machine a spin might not be such a bad idea after all.

Then I concluded that the "melted brain" scenario was much more likely. So did the guys working on the machine, and after 45 minutes, I was told I'd need to come back another time. That was fine. I had plenty of other upcoming tests to keep me busy.

Three weeks later on a Saturday, I opened the door to a waiting room in the basement of a building in Bay Ridge. I tapped my way along the wall, keeping a hand out in front of me. It was a dark room, but I knew from having been there a week earlier that I'd be hitting the reception desk before long.

Sure enough, I found it, and stopped. I couldn't hear anybody behind the desk. No voices, no shuffling papers.

Then a man's voice behind me said, "There's no one here yet."

"Oh," I said. "Okay?I guess I'll go?take a seat then."

"Yeah, I guess that would be good."

Not being too sure of someone who would wait so long to say something, I tapped to the far side of the room, found a chair, and took a seat.

"I think we're early," he said. "There's no one here yet."

But if there was no one there, why was the door open? And if hadn't been open before he got here, how did he get in? And why are all medical facilities kept so goddamn dim all the time?

I kept my questions to myself, and waited. I heard a voice coming from a distant back room. Seems we weren't alone after all. The other man in the waiting room got on his cell phone and began making party plans.

A few minutes later a third man-this one named Aguirre-appeared from the back and called a name. The man on the phone stood and followed him through a door.

The rest of he building was silent, so I had no trouble hearing the noises they were making in the back room. It worried me. This Aguirre sounded like a drill sergeant or a high school football coach.

"Faster!" he was yelling. "More! More! More!"

I was too tired to deal with that this morning. Plus I hadn't had a smoke in two hours.

Twenty minutes later, as I grew increasingly nervous over the things I was hearing, the man left. He didn't say a word, but his step seemed lighter, almost relieved.

"Mr??" Aguirre said. As I was the only one in the waiting room, I assumed he meant me, so I followed.

He led me down a long hallway to a large examination room. The previous weekend I'd been in a much smaller room for a Jetsons-inpired stress test. This time I was supposed to get a complete pulmonary exam. Nobody ever bothered telling me what that involved, so I came prepared for both nothing and everything.

"Have a seat," Aguirre said. After I did, he placed something in my hand. It felt like a shower curtain ring. "That's a nose clip," he said. "Put it on."

My worries deepened.

"Now this," his said, "is the handle to the breathing tube," He took my hand and placed it on the handle. "And the breathing tube's right above it. Put your mouth on there."

The plastic tube was about an inch in diameter, so I did what seemed to be the only logical and sanitary thing, pressing my mouth against the tube, my lips inside the opening.

"No, no, no," he said. "Put your mouth around it. Put it between your teeth and really wrap your lips around it."

I hesitated. Not only was this weird on the most basic level, but there was some serious question as to how clean the whole process was. After all, the guy before me was clearly going through the same test, but there hadn't been time to clean this tube off before I came in. How many diseased lips had been here before me? How many years of spit were caked on the surface?

Still, I did what he ordered.

"Now just breathe normally," Aguirre said.

The surface of the tube felt rough, like it had been chewed on.

"Now breathe in fast! Breathe out completely!" Aguirre barked-and I was so startled I had no choice.

Over the next 20 minutes he sat at a computer next to me hitting the occasional button, yelling those same phrases over and over again, until I finally got used to it. I never did get used to sucking on that pipe, though. My stomach began to take a weird turn.

When it was over with, he took my arm and raised me shakily to my feet. I was a little woozy from the hyperventilation, the nausea and the nicotine withdrawal.

He led me back out to the waiting room, then to the elevator. Then he got on the elevator with me.

"I think I need to get a little air," he said.

"Me too," I agreed. After a moments silence I asked, "So?how long have you been doing this?"

"Oh, since about 1997, 1998," he said. "I guess maybe it's time I start looking for a new career, huh?"

I had no answer, and began wondering why so many of the medical personnel I'd been dealing with over the previous weeks felt compelled to tell me about their desire to do something else with their lives.