A Fit of Giggling

PET scans are not funny. There is nothing about them that should make you laugh. After all, you spend twenty minutes just listening to the cautions about the test.

Did you have any caffeine/carbohydrates/tobacco? (Does that mean if I had any of those things, I could implode in the machine?)
When was the last time you ate or drank anything? (If I slip up and yield to temptation, will I croak in the huge tube?)
Did you exercise in the last 12 hours? (Do you seriously think I would give up sleeping to take a 12K run?)
List all your previous surgeries. (Do you have a 20 page notebook?)
Drink this stuff (barium). After 2 cups, we will let you rest a bit before we give you another round. (yeah, right. If I don't barf first).
After the test, you will be RADIOACTIVE for at least four hours.
Flush the toilet twice after use, and make sure you wash your hands well. (Will they wither up and fall off if I don't?)
Don't touch any animals, babies or elderly people. (Should I seek out people I am not too fond of and hug them closely?)
Stay at least an arm's length from everyone for the next four hours at least. (When have you ever known me to get physically close to anyone?)
Hold still while we inject you with a radioactive isotope. And just to make sure we didn't miss anything, we will flush the container with IV solution and inject that in you too.

Yikes! Where is there anything funny in all that?

And yet, as I was heading down the throat of the huge cylinder, I found myself fighting off a huge fit of giggles.

Breath in. Blow the air out. Hold your breath!

How do you do that when you are about to explode on the inside with inappropriate laughter? You know, the kind that always hits you when you are in places that require silence - like a formal worship service in a cathedral, or at a funeral. I once got a hysterical fit of laughter in a Sunday morning church service. Something that I normally would not have thought twice about suddenly struck me as ridiculous, and I started to laugh.

At first you can kind of contain it. You stomach shakes and your ribs are heaving and your shoulders pump up and down, but you manage to prevent the sound from coming out of your mouth. If you think serious thoughts and dummy up, sometimes you can make it stop. But this particular Sunday, I couldn't get it to go away. It finally snuck up into my throat where it turned into a sort of grunting, snorting sound while tears streamed down my now red cheeks. Finally I had no choice but to open my mouth and let it out or I would have choked. Then of course, the sound is much louder than if I had just let it out in the first place. Mother reached over and applied the well known pinch remedy, which helps. But even so, it takes awhile for the excitement to subside.

Well, there I was sliding into the craw of that stupid machine, and all I could think of was a show I had seen on TV of a snake swallowing a rat whole. The process was an initial grab, then a pause, then a swallow which resulted in the rat coming back out of the snake mouth a few inches, then sliding further in. Each swallow saw that same process of out a bit, then in deeper.

And that was exactly what I was doing. The technician had positioned me on the table, then disappeared into the control room. Suddenly I jumped halfway into the tube and stopped. A few minutes later, the table exited the tube a few inches, then moved forward deeper into the tube than I had been before. My head was still out and I could easily see the yawning mouth for a time as I was jockeyed back and forth in and out of the machine. At first I was counting things (my usual defense when I haven't been able to focus on a Bible verse or song) - the speaker had concentric circles in multiples of eight dots. 1, 8, 16, 32, 64. The ceiling panels had splotches that formed letters if you looked closely and used a bit of imagination - R, T, W, S.

That's when the image of that darn snake/rat hit me. I sure sympathized with the rat about the long drawnout process. Its agonizing being swallowed an inch at a time! And then the ludicrousness of it hit me. I started to giggle. "Stop that," I told myself. "This is a serious business. You have to hold still or you will mess up the results." For a minute, I was dead serious. Then the silliness of the parallel hit me again and the giggle gurled up in my throat. OY!

Fortunately, the technician's voice came over the speaker just then. "We are almost done with this part of the test, and then we will take you out of the machine for a minute to reposition you for the next part. Just another minute or two. Hang in there. You're doing good."

Caught in mid laugh! After that I behaved. Not sure what she thought I was doing, but I didn't bother to tell her. At least we didn't have to start all over. As I exited the building, I wondered how many people in the waiting room were there for the same procedure. If all twenty of them left there radioactive, and if more people came for that same test during the day, and if there are a dozen or so clinics all doing this test on people, and if everyone who is radioactive goes out and hugs three friends and contaminates them, can we set the city of Rochester on fire? Food for thought. (Are you laughing yet?)!