On the Table

I tested how far I could move my arms. The right one, less than two inches; the left one, maybe two and a half. My head wouldn't budge. A nurse had straitjacketed my arms with a sheet and strapped my head to the narrow table atop a hydraulic pedestal. I felt precariously suspended four feet from the floor. Did they think I would jolt involuntarily when the radiologist injected dye into my brain? Three nurses prepared me for an angiogram of the arteries in my neck and head. A headache closed my eyes to the glare. For the first time since my right arm and leg had gone numb four days ago, I was afraid. In the next minute or two, life as I knew it could be gone forever; the chance was between one and four in a hundred that I would have another stroke when the dye entered my brain. The neurologist had wanted to let my brain recuperate a couple of weeks before the angiogram, but recurring symptoms last night pushed the test forward. Perhaps I shouldn't have refused sedation, but I wanted no part of anything that could numb my thinking as alcohol had during my twenty-year drinking career.