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He decided that the best immediate course of action was to take a couple of x-rays to confirm that I wasn't going to fall over dead in the parking lot and then to send me on my way to a physical therapist to fix whatever muscular problem I had developed.  So, I put on a sexy backless hospital robe, had my x-rays taken and went back to the examination room to read the copy of Bicycling magazine I picked up in the waiting room-it's always a good sign when the doctor's office subscribes to Bicycling. 

Dr. Baron returned a few minutes later with a big manila envelope in his hand.  He placed the two big x-rays on the backlit x-ray reader and said "Hm."  --not a cheery "Hmmmmm" or a questioning "Hm?" as though he had just missed what I had said.  It was clearly the boy-is-this-guy-screwed version.  I had been expecting his next words to be something along the lines of "looks great, lets get you set up with a PT."  Instead, I got "OK. I'm going to write a prescription for you to get an MRI."  I almost fell out of my chair. 

 Apparently, my bottom disc, the one between L-5 and S-1, is mashed flat as a tortilla.  Here's the cell phone picture I took of the x-ray--yes, I took a cell phone picture of my spine x-ray.  As Holly would say--move along:

The problem with having a tortilla-like disc is that the vertebrae above and below that disc tend to pinch the nerves that come off the spinal cord thus producing pain.  Because MRIs can see all the soft tissue and the other various icky stuff (like spinal discs) that are inside your body, he decided that I needed to get one to assess the extent of my screwed-uppedness.  Great. 

 So off I went to the MRI store. 

 The first thing I noticed when I walked into the room with the MRI machine is that the place was constructed almost entirely of warning notices.  Evidently, you don't want any kind of metal anywhere near you in one of these places, and God forbid if you're afraid of enclosed spaces. 

 The helpful staff prepped me for my 30-minute (30 minutes?) journey to the center of the MRI machine, which looks, by the way, like something a James Bond Villain would build.  They made sure I didn't have any metal, that I wasn't scared of enclosed spaces, and that I had earplugs--MRIs are extremely noisy.  Then I rolled, human cannonball-like, into the disconcertingly small opening at the front of the machine. 

 Let me tell you, they're not kidding about the enclosed spaces warning!  I was thinking that I'm glad I'm a skinny 5'8" triathlon guy and not some hulking football lineman or something because it really is a pretty tight squeeze in there.  Fortunately, I'm blessed (or cursed, depending on the circumstances) with the ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime and the 30 minutes went by before I even knew what happened. 

Next up: The Tale the MRI Told (or something like that)

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