Tag: hospital

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Blues

I am having my MRI done tomorrow. I have to admit, I am a little worried. Not because of the MRI itself, but rather, what it might show. I have had one before, it showed the specialist treating my lower back problem what was happening and ultimately how he could go about fixing it.

In 1999 I got the results of my MRI and it finally showed everyone why my back was killing (metaphorically) me. I had a rotting disc in my lower back. I also found out that I had one leg significantly shorter than the other, although if he told me which leg it was I have since forgotten.

The disc, though, was the thing causing all the problems. I was told it was congenital, meaning that I had probably been born that way. Pieces of the rotting disc were getting lodged against nerve endings which was why nothing in the way of pain medication was really working. And believe me when I tell you, I was taking hand-fulls of the stuff.

I had my operation in September 1999 and they replaced my rotting disc with a titanium box filled with bone shavings from my hip. All very space-agey. They then put giant staples in my back to hold the skin together and sent me home.

And apart from my immediate concern that if I strained too hard at anything the staples might come out, I was fine. Once the staples were taken out and I finished getting back to ‘normal’ health wise, I then had to wean myself off of the pain medicine.

Everything was great for ages. I went through a sort of ‘Peter Pan‘ stage of my life. My back never bothered me apart from the odd time I would pull a muscle. Then I got injured at work.

Nothing dramatic just a short, fast, fall to the floor with the weight of three other people to propel our short journey. I noticed my back hurting after I had filled in the report of what happened and placed two of the people on report. All in a days work. Or so I thought. I went to work for three more shifts. Each shift I worked it became more painful to walk until I finally had to throw in the towel and go the the surgery.

After lots of physiotherapy and a load of pain pills later, I am still not back to normal. I am better, just not better enough. I know that I have somehow incurred some sort of nerve damage. But at 53, if I require an operation to put it right, I won’t heal as quickly as I did when I 41. It’s an age thing. And if I take too long to heal, I could lose my job and either way I am going to lose money.

So I sit here and worry, get crotchety and sometimes throw all my toys out of the pram. I get angry at the silliest of things and completely ignore the things I should get angry at. I am acting illogically and I know it, damn it.

So I’ll be glad when the damn thing is done. That way I’ll know if I even need to worry.

English: Photo taken in the MRI lab mri of my ...

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28 Days Later…(2002) Don’t Get Mad

I will admit to becoming an instant fan-boy of director Danny Boyle after just one viewing of Shallow Grave (1994) and became a devout follower after watching (three times) Trainspotting (1996). So when I saw a trailer for 28 Days Later…  I could not wait to see the film. I knew Boyle would do a brilliant job in the Horror genre. The baby scene in Trainspotting so freaked me out that even after watching it three times, I had to cover my eyes half-way through. Unfortunately, I had to wait.

I had to because I worked nights, delivering newspapers. Six nights a week. So on my only day off, rather than see films at the cinema, I slept. All day. So  I had to wait for the video/DVD to come out and rent it. Even on the ‘small’ screen the film delivered. So much so that I bought the special edition DVD the minute it came on the market.

Boyle has taken the Zombie genre and shifted it slightly to the left. Because the zombies in 28 days Later…are not. They are mindless, they are going to eat you if they catch you, but, they are not dead.

28 Days later opens with multiple scenes of crowd violence and rioting in numerous countries. The camera moves back from the violence and we see a wall full of monitors all showing different forms of crowd violence. Strapped to a table in front of the monitors is a chimpanzee. The chimp has electrodes attached to it’s head. Three Animal Rights Activists break into the  animal testing centre where chimpanzees are  undergoing, what appears to be horrific tests.  The activists  are there to record for posterity the abuse the animals are receiving and to let the poor things go free. A lab technician tries to stop the activists explaining that they are all infected and highly contagious. The technician explains that all the chimps have been injected with an inhibitor called Rage. He also explains that it can be spread through saliva and blood.  The activist’s ignore his warning, and threaten him. The first poor creature they let loose  immediately attacks them. The activists are infected instantly.

28 days later bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital bed. He gets up and finds the hospital deserted. Leaving the hospital, he finds all of London is deserted.

So begins the film. 28 Days Later boasts a small cast. For a lot of the film we follow Jim, Selena (Naomie Harris), Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Megan (Megan Burns) as they flee London and head for an Army safe haven they have heard about on the radio. Constantly on the look out for infected people and ready to run at a moments notice. It seems that Rage was very contagious, with most of the population either suffering from it or getting killed from the infected.  While the four are travelling cross country we bond with them just as they bond with each other. When they reach what looks like their destination, it appears deserted. The Army vehicles are empty, the outposts are deserted and civilian vehicles litter the motorway. Frank makes everyone stay put and he starts searching for people who are not infected.

He walks up to a pylon where a crow is pecking at a dead soldier. A drop of blood falls from the infected body and hits Frank in the eye. The change is immediate. He has gotten the Rage virus. As he moves to attack the remaining three people in his party, an shot rings out. The cavalry arrives in the form of a small rag-tag group of soldiers. They are lead by Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) who after dispatching Frank gives the survivors a lift to where the rest of the soldiers are bivouacked.

The small group of Army men are using a deserted mansion that the soldiers have fortified against the infected.  When the small group arrive at the mansion the Major takes them on a tour of the house. They all begin to feel uneasy when, as part of the tour, the Major shows them one of his men who has been infected. They have chained him up behind the house for “observation.”  This “observation” seems to be the soldiers taunting their infected mate and beating him when he comes near. The uneasiness that the three feel is for a good reason. Unfortunately The soldiers have not saved all three of the group at all.  It is revealed that the only way the Major West could get the soldiers to stay was to promise them women. Jim is taken out to be executed and Selena and Hannah, who is only about thirteen, are taken upstairs to get ‘presentable’ as a prelude to gang rape.

Jim escapes his executioners and makes his way back to the mansion. Once there he lets the infected soldier loose. While the infected is rushing through the mansion to kill his former colleagues, Jim goes to rescue the two girls.

This film was an adrenaline pumping, heart stopping film. The music in the film helped to set the mood. Especially the use of In the House, In the Heart which has been used at least twice more in other films. The music makes us the audience feel sad, lost and, as I’ve said in another blog, slightly melancholy. The film was very low budget, but it doesn’t feel like a low budget feature. The actors all give brilliant performances and really help to sell the story.

If you were to make a list of Films that just have to be seen, 28 Days later …would be at the top of the list.

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