For SCIENCE!!!

A few weeks ago Jess and I took a trip down to the Medical Center to a have her brain imaged. She had two different machines measure and analyze her brain. One of them was an MRI*, the other was this big giant helmet of epicness. I (being you know "dim") forgot the name of it but it's hooked up to this big giant supercomputer that requires it's own AC unit.

Jess claims to have felt "astronautly".

The machine (as it will henceforth be called) measures the amount of activity that takes place during a simple reading exercise. In order to make sense of the whole thing an MRI is needed to map all the information and give it a place in the brain (or at least that's how it was 'splained to me), so off we went to the MRI chamber of doom. Before entering the room where the MRI takes place, I asked Jess if she wanted me to be with her during the whole procedure. Jess being the independent free thinker that I raised her to be (that's gonna come back and bite me in the butt, betcha) said no. She told me she was ok with being there alone, so I went and sat by the window, pulled out my knitting and got ready for an hour's worth of knitting time. But first I took these pictures of the computer monitor. (See, good blogger)

Aha!!! I knew I put one of those in there.

Whoa, dudes, I totally built that from scratch.

She handled it pretty well for like the first 15 minutes, but then the MRI machine started making some sounds that really freaked her out. Even though she was wearing earplugs and those huge noise blocker headsets she could still hear the loud scary sounds. She began to fidget and that is a major no-no, so they stopped and we went in and asked her if maybe it was ok for mommy to sit in with her, she said yes and in I went.

They gave me a set of the big noise blocker headsets (and pants) and I sat next to her for what turned out to be one of the most awful hours of my life. Jess demanded I hold her hand through out and that left me with an inability to knit that literally robbed the life out of me.

Jess made me so proud. She chose to be in there alone but was smart enough to call for mommy and then even though she was still afraid she didn't quit. I think any other 7 year old would have broken down in tears and refused to continue, but not my Jess. She not only did her very best, but she finished what she started. I'm not cool enough to be her mommy, but I appreciate the opportunity.

In the end the doctors gave Jess candy, a water bottle and a copy of her brain scan.

You did excellent my dear, please forget about all the whining your mommy did during the scan.

Don't be like mommy.

Have a great day!! *Jess had to have an MRI of her head because of other medical concerns, so this was sort of a 2 birds with one stone kind of thing. She is totally and completely healthy though.