I've started taking a sewing class. My mom bought me a machine a couple years ago for my birthday. We set it up together, and she showed me how to thread it, make a bobbin, and do very basic sewing. After which I took it home to Georgia, left it in a box for a month, took it out once and couldn't get it threaded, and promptly returned it to the box, where it has been glaring at me intimidatingly for some time. My first project was a pillow case. I came to class with my machine, opened the box to find that the pedal was missing (shit!), and then used one of theirs. It was so easy that I was embarrassed at how long I had waited. The next week I had found my pedal. I was only going to class for a short time, because I had to go across the street to the hospital for an MRI (more on that later). I came in, plugged in my recovered pedal, threaded the machine, and then found that the set of bobbins I had were the wrong size for the machine. Shit. But the teacher had an extra of the right size, which she gave to me. She looked at my thread.

"That might be enough. Just don't fill the bobbin."

I didn't. I threaded the bobbin and the machine, and started sewing. There was a lot of oil in the thread, and it was much darker than the material I was using to make my valance. I stopped sewing, grabbed a scrap of cloth, sewed until the thread was clean. Then I put the valance back under and started sewing. The thread broke, but it was a minute or so before I realized that because I was concentrating so hard on keeping the fabric straight. When I did see it, I stopped sewing, put the valance aside, tried to extract the thread from the machine. It was very, very gummed up. The thread was frayed and broken. I couldn't reach it. My teacher came over.

"Oh dear. I have never seen that before. I think the thread is just really cheap."

She said she's find a screwdriver so we could take the back off and get the thread out. I didn't have the time, what with the MRI and all, so I said I'd take care of it at home.

I rushed into the hospital with three minutes to spare. It looked closed, honestly, which was a bizarre experience for me. I have spent all of my life in big, crowded places, and any hospital I've ever been to has been teeming with people and sounds and chaos. Not so here in Vermont. It was several minutes before I could figure out where the non-emergency entrance was. There was no one in reception or at the information desk, so I followed the signs to the imaging department.
I was given a lovely pair of hospital pants, as well as the standard gown and a robe. I kept my knee-length wool socks on. I looked hot. I had brought along my iPh0ne, which was lucky, since the only other music options were radio stations. It's bad enough being claustrophobic in one of these things; I didn't need the some crap pop music and an irritating DJ adding to my discomfort. It wasn't as bad as I had imagined. It was long (35 minutes) and the machine was loud, but between Centro-Matic and Lyle Lovett I managed to get through. Relaxation techniques taught to me by my former yoga instructor and good friend Rob were key.
I got the results back in writing a few days later, and I will be bringing them to my Physical Therapist on Monday for review. Mostly I didn't understand the document (the b.h. swears that half the words are made up), but the words "tear" and "cyst" jumped right out at me. Really, really hoping this is not going to mean surgery. Mostly just trying not to think about it right now.