resting still

Apparently, God had more rest in store for me today.

I began the morning sitting for an hour in a radiology office, waiting to be called back for an MRI. I was on time--a few minutes early, even--but I've learned that carries little weight with doctors and radiologists and the like. About a year and a half ago, I hyper-extended my right knee while playing racquetball at the Y. Since then, I've reinjured it twice more during subsequent racquetball games, twice while hiking, at least three times while playing volleyball, and once while skidding in my slippers across my sister's hardwood floor. Both my sisters and my mother injured their knees in similar ways and all three had knee surgery, so I guess it was inevitable that my turn would come. We'll see what the doctor says.

If you've never had an MRI, let me describe it for you. If you're 5'5 and 3/4", like me, the fun begins when you attempt to hoist yourself up on the slick, too-tall table. I put a tad too much energy into my hoist and nearly catapulted to the other side. Once I centered myself appropriately, my right knee was locked in a metal ring and padded with what looked exactly like the ripped and chewed pieces of yellow foam my dog Larry leaves all over the yard. My other knee was wedged upwards into a flattish "A" shape with a large piece of what looked exactly like the ripped and chewed swatches of black speaker fabric my dog Larry leaves all over the yard.

Once I was sufficiently harnessed and wedged, the radiologist--a lovely woman who spoke English only sparingly--slid my table under the massive round xray machine and began directing me as to what I could and could not do during the next forty-five minutes. I had trouble deciphering her instructions, and apparently missed the one in which she granted me freedom to move my arms in the event of an emergency. I really wish I'd caught that, because my nose began itching five minutes into the procedure and I spent the next forty minutes willing the room's one lone fly to land on my nose and wipe his feet, or tap dance, or do any number of other movements that would scratch my itch. The only direction I heard clearly from the radiologist was "Do not move a muscle." I am disgustingly obedient.

So I endured an hour of sitting in the lobby followed by forty-five minutes of lying trapped and still under the clicks and knocks and rumbles of the MRI machine. By the time I was released, I did not feel well. I think it had something to do with the suppression of my itch. That can't be good for you. I drove home and got in bed--and stayed there until my children came home from school.

The day did not go as I'd planned, but I've accepted the fact that now and again, God will ask me to take a detour. To my way of thinking, this would have been a good day to get good and productive, but He had another plan. Today, I had an extended time out. But who knows? Tomorrow I may accomplish twice as much as I would have without my forced day off.

Today's reminder: When you need to rest . . . rest.