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Apr 16, 2004 I saw myself in a new light today... literally. I was sitting in the hospital lab alongside a giant, mechanized X-ray machine waiting for one of the doctors or nurses scurrying nearby to stop in and begin my tests when I noticed a full chest X-ray on a doctor’s light box. Only moments before I had briefly stepped up to a much smaller device to have a “snapshot” taken of my chest. In a few moments...or minutes... or perhaps hours I would step up on the levantian that filled the 10’ X 15’ room and someone would smile and say... “ This won’t hurt.” But now I was waiting. Scanning the room and the hallway beyond. It was there, in the hallway visible through an open door, that I saw the image that shocked me. The X-ray was hanging like a piece of meat in the butchers cooler as I wondered, “Was that black, white, and gray image a picture of the innermost me?” I am what those who love to find quick and easy cubbyholes into which to put people would call an “aging baby boomer”. I am not old. No way. I would admit, however, to occasionly struggling with aching fingers, bad back, thinning hair and a bit of confusion early in the morning when I first look into the mirror and wonder “What’s my father doing here...he’s dead?” I was to be tested for a possible problem with my esophagus. An occasional clogging midway in my chest that demanded a wash of water, milk, or... heaven forbid, needless calorie-laden beer, while eating. It didn’t happen often. But often enough that I mentioned it to my doctor during a regular check-up. Now I was here, sitting in hosptial gown that unfortunately didn’t come with instructions waiting for my barium milkshake so that this lumbering machine could open it’s humming eye and peer even further into the workings of my body. I guess I had never seen into myself like that before. At least, if I did it didn’t register quite the same way. Peering into the hallway I examined the chest X-ray as best I could considering I was at least 30 feet away. No worry, though. Were I up close I would have been at a loss, squinting to make out the details because my reading glasses were locked away in the locker with my shirt and jacket. But I could still see well at a distance. And I liked it that way. Of course, I had seen X-rays of others before. They just looked like... X-rays. But the one that shone there today had a particular life. Mine. It was my X-ray. Those were my bones, my lungs, and my shadowy areas that could just as easily be my Liver as some horrendous growth that was just waiting to be discovered and doom me to face a stern faced doctor who would grimly intone... “I’m sorry sir, but you only have fifteen minutes to live.” But all kidding aside, it was disconcerting to see myself there. There was a reality to that picture that I couldn’t avoid. Not the way I can avoid looking at myself too closely while I both admit that I’m nearly 54 years old with two children and at the same time firmly believe that I’m really only in mid-thirties at most, a fun loving, adventuresome, occasional goofball just waiting for some excitement to come sweep me off for awhile. The X-ray was too solid. Too concrete. Too much... there. Too real. You can’t fool an X-ray. You can’t hide behind your mental image of yourself when you step up to the X-ray machine. The bits of sub-atomic matter blast through any fantasy you might construct and show the real you. The cruel little devils have no heart. You can try every trick you’ve ever used to fool yourself but none of them will work. Hell. Despite what the plastic surgeons might want people to believe, there’s no hidding from the truth. And, I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the truth according to the X-Ray. I have my own truth, thank you and I’m mostly doing fine with it. Sure, there are some days when it’s even hard for me to swallow it.. my truth, that is, not to mention the occasional cornbeef sandwich on hard rye. And I was there today to deal with the latter, not the former. But, it was. In Black and White ( and numerous shades of gray). And it made me squirm. Fortunately, the young doctor who led the trek into toward my digestive system said her preliminary reading was positive. Little did she know. ------------ About the author: David Kravitz is a free-lance writer and playwriter living in the Chicago area. He writes to keep himself, and if possible,others, entertained and out of trouble. Email: dkrav@xsite.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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