“Yes,” I agreed, “let us rule out all the things.”
* * *
The severity of any medical condition can be measured in paper clothing. If you’re given an open-backed gown, you’re fine. If you’re given an open-backed gown and a giant napkin, you’re fine but you’re at the gynecologist’s office. So that’s not ideal. If you’re given an open-backed gown and paper slippers, you’re in a hospital. If you’re given an open-backed gown, paper slippers, and a hair cap, your organs are about to be harvested because you’re a clone of a wealthier person who needs your parts.
“What’s this for?” I asked, clutching the hair cap.
“Safety,” the technician replied, a catchall for every object ever invented.
Getting one’s hair caught inside the tracks of an MRI machine is just the kind of nightmare scenario that should have made it into the movies by now. Just look what modern cinema has done with the tanning bed—and there’s nothing wrong with those characters aside from their desire to get into a tanning bed.
I knew the trick was to keep my eyes closed so that I didn’t see the proximity of a coffin lid to my face. Just before he slid me in, the technician handed me a button with a cord attached “in case.” In case I had a panic attack and needed to be yanked out. I was also given foam earplugs to dampen the noise. Foam earplugs are the gummy vitamins of soundproofing—you’d have to pour cement in your ears not to hear an MRI. I pretended I was at some kind of art installation, maybe at the Guggenheim, where one floor melds into the next. The first floor sounded like a game-show buzzer. The second, like ducks quacking while someone scrubbed tiles with steel wool. The top floor was a train barreling over the tracks of a small town. Then, suddenly, the noises stopped and the technician’s voice came through a speaker:
“We happy in there?”
“Yes?” I guessed.
Realizing my synapses were on display on the other side of the wall, I began trying to stimulate them. I imagine this is about as effective as running around the block before a physical. I counted backward from 200. I engaged in disturbing thought experiments like: Who would I save in a fire, my cat or the uppity barista at my coffee shop? I tried replicating the feelings of infatuation I felt for ex-boyfriends, taking imaginary tours of their apartments, trying to remember which posters and paintings had gone on which walls. All in the name of having attractive synapses. Which, come to think of it, is just the kind of thinking that ended most of those relationships.
Afterward, I waited for Dr. Goldfinger in his office, studying the medical degrees hanging proudly above the hazardous-waste bin. During my last visit, I had made a point of complimenting his pants. They were brown with blue pinstripes. Very stylish for a doctor. Then it dawned on both of us that the reason I had the chance to study them was because he had just rotated my head parallel with his crotch.
“Thank you,” Dr. Goldfinger said, clearing his throat. “They’re Banana Republic.”
“Well, they’re great,” I said, addressing his penis. “Do you have them in different colors?”
I could not, for the life of me, stop talking about the pants. I vowed to keep my mouth shut this time. So when he came in sporting a pair of red corduroys, I tried not to smile.
“I have some not-so-hot news,” he announced.
Then I didn’t have to try. Dr. Goldfinger explained that, after ruling out everything else and factoring in my range of symptoms, it was clear I had more than vertigo. The good news: I did not have a brain tumor. The bad news: I do have a funny little disease called Ménière’s, which sounds like a pastry but is the opposite of a pastry.
Dr. Goldfinger explained that, unlike vertigo, Ménière’s disease is relatively rare. There are about 200,000 cases in the United States. Though I will say 200,000 feels like an awful lot when you’re one of them. In addition to the vertigo, the hallmarks of Ménière’s are a feeling of fullness in the ears (as if they need to be popped), relentless dizziness, and spontaneous vomiting. There is no cure and no one can predict the duration of an attack. Some people get it for hours, others for years. Attacks amass over time, damaging the cilia in your inner ear a little more, culminating in deafness.
“Sorry, what?”
Dr. Goldfinger twisted on his rolling stool.
“Van Gogh had Ménière’s,” he offered.
And look how that turned out, I thought.
Naturally, I was upset. The idea of having something so permanent is upsetting. But in the moment, it felt more like a surprise adoption. As if this disease had been living its life somewhere else, with someone else, and due to unforeseen circumstances, I was now its guardian. I could not understand that it was a part of me, but I could understand that it would entail a change of plans. Which might explain why my first reaction was to tell Dr. Goldfinger that I had recently decided to become proficient in a musical instrument, specifically the violin. I felt my life would be greatly enriched if I could learn to play just one piece. Now what was I supposed to do?
“You’re concerned with how this might affect your prospects for playing an instrument you’ve never played?”
“I played it in the third grade,” I corrected him.
“Well, I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about that. People with severe Ménière’s are on disability. They’re really screwed. You have a low-grade version of the disease.”
“Ménière’s lite?” I asked, hopeful, lifting my head.
“Exactly,” he said, blithely burying the lead. “I’m doubtful you’ll go deaf deaf.”
I didn’t want to go any number of deafs.
“It could be worse,” he said. “It could be cancer.”
This was not the first time Dr. Goldfinger suggested I appreciate my place on
