On Overcoming Claustrophobia

I interrupt this series on Acres of Hope to talk about fears. Sacha posted about some of hers and it got me thinking. This is the time of year when I can't help but look back to five years ago when Joel was born. I have written much about my experience that was both the worst and best time of my life.

One huge fear I always had was claustrophobia. Elevators bothered me. Closets that I had to bend into to find stuff caused shortness of breath. (Which, if I was organized, wouldn't require digs of archaeological proportion, but that's a whole 'nother post.) The smaller the space, the faster my heart raced, the sweatier my palms got, the dizzier I felt.

So, when I gave birth to Joel and ruptured all my pelvic ligaments, it rendered me temporarily incontinent. (Okay, maybe that's TMI, but I have to say it for what follows.) The OB told me to give it two weeks. Then three. Then a month. I wondered if I would ever stop wearing Depends. I couldn't feel the bladder fill up because of nerve damage. I was angry-- no, make that furious with the doctor who had let me deliver after I had repeatedly told him that I felt I was literally going to "pop" something while pushing. I had told him this for at least a month and that I was already experiencing nerve damage because I couldn't lift my own right leg without help. It was basically paralyzed from my 8th month on. A C-section, I believed, would be safer. He doubted it since I'd had three previous normal, natural births.

Anyway, back to the incontinence. After five weeks on bedrest and still on crutches, I let my mother who is an RN, advocate for an MRI for me. She didn't want the southern muscles (my term, not hers) to atrophy while I was waiting for the OB to wake up and smell the urine. (Sorry again. Mine phraseology, not hers.) It was actually my orthopedic surgeon who wanted to know what was going on, and it was he who ordered the MRI.

So MRI day came and I was only a little nervous. This whole time I'm thinking, "No big deal. It's for pelvis, not my neck. I can handle having my butt in the cave."
Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. The bliss wore off faster than a bandaid in a swimming pool when the nice tech said, "Okay, now, Zoanna, we need you to scoot all the way down...a little more...a little more..." and I'm saying, "How much more?" and she says, "We need from your head to your knees..."!

"My head? I'm here for a pelvic scan." (Where did she get her degree?) She kindly pointed out what I already knew: I am short. And what I didn't know: the cave is long. I would have to go under, head and all.

That's when the sweat turned to tears. I felt so foolish. A blubbering, weak, chronically-in-pain, incontinent fool. I fought back the tears as she slid me almost all the way under."

"Stop!" I said, grabbing the front of the tube with one hand and clutching my sliding table with the other. "I can't do this .I can't do this. Please call my husband."

She touched my leg and told me she understood. I felt like saying, "Then YOU take my place from head to waist!" but instead I say, "May I please have a minute? Alone? I need to pray."

She left me alone, I cried, and called on Jesus. I knew I needed this MRI in order to put to rest some nagging questions and fears. But I had fears upon fears about the procedure itself. Not only did I have to go under, I had to not move AND it had to be on my back. Because of my injuries, lying flat on my back had been taboo and horribly painful since the birth. For the past five weeks, I had been ordered to lie on one side or the other all day, all night, except for walking around inside the house for a few minutes on crutches) but I could not lie on my back. Gravity would have to reunite my hips.

My condition was called Postpartum Pubic Dyastasis, which means that, instead of my hips expanding the normal two centinmeters for the birth and then coming back together right away, they popped open--the nurse literally wrote "pop" in my charts; does that mean I was once on the pop charts? Boo. Anway, they spread five centimeters and stayed apart. Such a condition had only been reported 11 times in OB history, and, miracle of miracles, the orthopedist I found four weeks afterward--for my oldest son's heel pain, not for myself at all--asked me to describe my problem and he diagnosed me over the phone. He had done a research paper on it at Wright State! He said, "I bet you're of Greek descent." (My first name's Greek, does that count?) "I bet you're about 5'2." (He was an inch shy of a perfect guess.) "I bet your baby was at least 9 pounds. " (Nine lbs, 3 oz.) "And I bet he's your first child." (Dr. Wright was Wrong and Surprised.) Where was this doctor's office? Five minutes from my house on the other side of Dunkin Donuts. Two more reasons to give thanks.

So here I was, afraid of not only this tight space, but knowing I wasn't supposed to move, but fearing the terrible pain from that position.

All I could say was "Help me, Jesus! Help me.... I love you! Help me." ( I am crying even as I write this, remembering in vivid detail the lights, the hard table, the big plastic magnetic resonance cave, the large, windowed wall separating me from the tech.) Some time in the course of probably two or three mintues, she came back in. I had had a peace wash over me, and once again God reminded me that if I make make my bed in hell, He is there (Psalm 139). Once more, the tech slid me, on my back, slowly and smoothly into the cave. She informed me that I was going to hear knocking like someone beating on a metal door or like gunfire on a trashcan. Comforting images. Did I want headphones, she asked? Yes. What radio station did I prefer? RBS, I said. What station is that? Christian radio, I said, 95.1 FM. I needed God's word more than I needed music, but I didn't formulate a prayer to that effect. God already had that detail planned, that I would need to concentrate on a sermon for a half hour.

For my pleasure, God had arranged the time of this MRI to correspond with RC Sproul's evening message. Remember, I had not planned on having my ears in that tube, so I certainly hadn't thought ahead to what I'd be drowning out the fearsome noises with. RC Sproul is a preacher I love to listen to, for many reasons: he is far more logical than I (I learn reasoning skills from him), he educates me in Latin, he cracks me up, his voice is deep and sonorous ,and he is doctrinally sound. He is so intelligent and such a good teacher that I feel like a Bible student in his class. I love that. I always loved Bible class. Well, not in 9th grade, but I digress.

I don't remember what RC was talking about. I just remember that it only took a few minutes for my heart to slow down and my hands to stop sweating. I was able to survey the plastic curving cave with wonder. Thanking God for modern technology and for living in a country where it was accessible and for Paul's good job that afforded us the insurance coverage for it, and for my church family who made living in a bed bearable by their daily visits and generous meals and some who even cleaned my kitchen and folded my laundry .For Sandy Browne who had dropped her early morning routine at home to come hold me while I cried at the news that I my pelvis was broken in three places and I couldn't roll over or sit up to go to the bathroom. For my mom who insisted on getting me an ambulance to ride home in from the hospital, and who stayed on the nurses' case in a nice but firm,take-charge way because I was too weak. For my dad who let me use his comfy car to go to my doctor visit in, who was not ashamed to buy diapers for his daughter, not just the new grandson. (Is it any wonder I named my Valentine baby after him?) For my husband, my precious, precious,precious diamond of a man . The man who lifted me from the bed to the wheelchair while all sorts of postpartum fluids drained from my body onto his shoes. The man who walked with the baby most of the night, every night, humming low repetitious tunes while I lay there in the rented hospital bed on my left side for two hours at a time, then on my right for two. The man who documented my pain meds like a resident in training. The man who came home from work and a long commute to a wife whose only contribution to the family was nursing the infant. (I couldn't even change Joel's diapers until Day 11, when I was strong enough to stand for the duration of a changing session.)

So my fears of the MRI? They were lifted. Not just lifted, but transported away and replaced with thanksgiving. My thanks were only interrupted by the realization that RC Sproul was teaching a very good thing, though as I said, I can't recall it! I came out triumphant, a victor over claustrophobia.

As I told Sacha in her comment box, " elevators now seem like wide, open spaces to me."

Praise the Lord. The Fear of Isaac has prevailed over many of my own.