Into That Loud and Narrow Place

I have been here before. The last time I almost bolted up and ran from the room, doing so in spite of being crippled. It was the narrowness of the thing, the confining tunnel that seemed to get smaller the longer I was in it. And the noise. The noise. The deafening rumble of the electromagnets doing their work. I could feel the noise deep in my broken tendon. Well, this time is different. This time it's about the brain. Yes, this is the next step toward finding out if and how much dementia has begun to take hold of that pea-sized chaos rattling around in my skull. I've done the genetic stuff, the cognitive tests, have been keeping track of how I am losing track. So now it's the imaging piece. I will descend into the portal, the tunnel, out of which I will emerge shaken but better informed of what will happen next. For now, the lights still shine as I go into the dark, narrow, god-forsaken noisy place.