I had to go for an MRI scan this week – nothing serious, hopefully, just a pain in my hand I’ve had for a while. A small fracture according to one person, but could be something else entirely according to another. I’ll find out next week.
So I was booked in to have my scan, and off I went to the hospital for my appointment, skipping through the carpark in the sunshine without a care in the world. But then I went into the room where my scan would take place and…well.  I wasn’t quite prepared for the fact that I’d have to have my entire body put inside a huge machine with a big scary tunnel running through the middle of it – when they said “scan”, I had envisaged some sort of ultrasound device being run back and forth across my hand and wrist. Nope. This was one serious piece of machinery – it took up almost the entire room and was just like the ones I’d seen on TV programmes like House MD. Patients in medical dramas only go into the tunnel machine if there’s something very seriously wrong with them, and they usually have some kind of seizure or panic attack whilst they’re in it, or their blood begins to boil or their head explodes or there’s a fire in the scanning department and everyone runs out, leaving the patient prone and vulnerable in the depths of the MRI scanner. (Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the last thing happen in a medical drama, but it could be an ...