Back in the Dark Ages of the early 1990’s, the reason MRI machines were sooo slow is because there was no digital anything at that point. They exposed your scans onto big sheets of film like x-rays, and needed to be processed accordingly. I was shuffling between various doctors and one of them (I don’t remember which) said “I don’t have time to get these over to Dr. So & So for your next appointment; you just want to hang on to them and bring them with you?” “No problem”, says I. Then I get to thinking, and I say to myself:
“Self, you are an aspiring young photographer, you have a fully working wet darkroom in your mom’s basement (at that point, there was no other kind), and you have a box of Kodalith lithography film you bought for that one project in college and have never used again. Those MRIs aren’t going anywhere tonight…”
So, I hobbled down to my darkroom and made copies of some of the grossest ones. One single frame has survived to this day, long after all the originals were destroyed. The left side (Note the T7 & T12 designations) shows my vertebrae. The dark grey line just to the right of that is my spinal cord, and the white stuff in between the cord and the bones and discs? Looks like someone sprayed whipped cream into my spine? I introduce you to Mr. Ependymoma.
Oh, and to be aged 20 and only 140lbs. again…
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