On an MRI Machine, a Forgotten Memory, and the Most Important Thing I Have Learned About Myself

Three years ago I went to a routine eye appointment.

I wear glasses. Every six months, a check-up. Nothing special.

The doctor was looking at medical images of my retina when she paused.

She asked if I got headaches.

I said yes, always! I drink a lot of caffeine, I don’t drink enough water, I have sleep problems.

I had normalized the headaches a long time ago…

Then a second doctor came into the room. Then a third.

Each one looked at the screen, said hello to me, and turned back to the images.

I watched all of this and told myself:

eyyy, filizco, it’s nothing, do not worry about it!

tabii ki böyle demedim, konuşsanıza amk diye saydırdım içimden.

One of them asked if I had numbness in my arms or hands.

I said yes, actually. I did.

They spoke quietly among themselves. Then they told me: my prescription had changed significantly, and there was inflammation of the optic nerve. An MRI would be a good idea.

I tried to get more information. They said there could be many causes. The MRI would tell us more.

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I walked out of the office and went directly to a café.

This is something I inherited from my grandmother. I never go straight home after difficult news.

When I was a child, after every doctor’s appointment she would take me to my favorite restaurant.

When I grew up and she was no longer with me, I kept the habit.

Find a crowded place first. Let your mind settle. Then go home.

I sat in the café and looked up what optic nerve inflammation could mean.

The first result: MS. Multiple sclerosis.

I sat with that for a while.

Then I called my closest friends.

My friend N started crying almost immediately. It’s her thing, and it is the exact reason why I love her.

Life is so unfair, Filiz. This is so unfair.

F said, “No, I don’t think it’s anything. I really don’t.”

But his voice, his whole energy on the phone, changed completely.

I knew him well enough to know he looked it up the moment we hung up.

M was at work that day. I texted him the news.

M called me a little later, after he had done his own research.

He is deeply religious. Faith is the center of his life.

But that day he was angry (very unusual of him).

I’m angry at God, Filiz. He hasn’t given you things other people take for granted, and now this on top of everything? He shouldn’t do this!

His voice broke a little.

I have had a great life. Hard one, yes, but genuinely, fully great.

I traveled the most beautiful places on earth, tasted the foods I wanted to try, always blessed with the best people. Ben dünyada olduğum için her zaman çok mutluydum!

If today were my last day, I would have no remorse about myself!

My closest friends know this about me!

I understood why they were reacting this way. They know my life.

They know that I have navigated most of it without the safety net that most people don’t even notice they have, the people who are simply there, who you don’t have to explain anything to, who would show up.

My friends are that for me now.

But they also know what it cost to get here. And they were frightened for someone who has already carried more than her share.

I listened to all of them. I told them it would be okay. I didn’t know yet if that was true, but it felt like the right thing to say.

Only later did I notice that I had spent those conversations on the other side of the equation.

The one doing the reassuring, not the one being reassured.

I didn’t mind. That is just how I am built.

But I also knew, somewhere, that I needed to be as careful with myself as my friends were being with me.

I may never fully come to terms with how unfair life is, but I accepted that truth a long time ago.

I have always tried to live fully in whatever moment I am in.

That is how my grandmother raised me!

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For the MRI, they gave me an appointment for two weeks later.

I cannot explain how vulnerable you feel being far away from home when you are having such health problems.

I was not going to sit at home for two weeks feeling sorry for myself! Not for Filizko! :)

The week after the eye appointment, we bought tickets to New York. We flew there.

We strolled the city, ate incredible East Coast cuisine, visited every bookstore I loved, spent hours in museums in front of paintings I love.

We stayed in Hoboken and every morning I woke up to the Manhattan skyline.

Most of the time, I was having fun. NYC is the kind of city that pulls you in, that makes you forget.

The MS thought came back occasionally.

If you have MS, you can collapse suddenly. That was frightening. But if I had MS, there was nothing I could do about it. I would only know when I knew.

What unsettled me more was the fear that came into M’s eyes, every now and then, when he thought I wasn’t looking.

It was chilling.

I was okay with waiting. He was not!

He was ready to do anything, to learn the truth immediately…

He was in NYC with me, but his brain had no break until exam day!

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Then came the MRI day!

There was a problem.

The machine was not the kind where only your head goes in. My whole body had to be inside.

I have claustrophobia.

I undressed completely. They gave me a white garment: ugly, unironed, freshly washed.

I lay down on the table. The machine began to move slowly, pulling me inside.

A few minutes in, I said I needed to get out. I was breathing too fast.

The technician said: I don’t think we can do this, you’re not looking well.

I really couldn’t. My heart was trying to leave my chest.

It’s a terrible machine, it makes terrible sounds and you cannot move at all.

But I genuinely needed to know. Whether I had MS or not.

The uncertainty was one thing. I can tolerate uncertainty. But this uncertainty was different.

I said: I’ll do it.

I lay back down. The technician said: I don’t think this is going to work, but okay, let’s try one more time.

I closed my eyes. I did not open them for one hour.

I could feel tears wanting to come but I held them.

I was going to learn the truth, whatever it was.

My heart was beating loud enough to feel in my chest for the first four or five minutes.

And then, from somewhere, a memory came.

Something I hadn’t thought about in twenty-four years.

My grandmother had surgery once, when I was a child. I stayed with my aunt during that time.

When we went to visit her afterward, I asked: Grandma, what did they do to you?

She told me they put her in a closed machine for a long time, then operated, removed the bad things.

She had serious heart problems and had gone through open-heart surgery.

I asked: Weren’t you scared? In the closed machine?

She said: I was scared. But then I thought of you, and it passed.

That memory came to me in the machine.

I thought: She was scared too. She thought of me and it passed. I’m scared. I’ll think of her.

It will pass. A few more minutes. You’re almost there, Filiz.

When the sixty minutes ended, the white garment was soaked through.

The technician said: I thought you couldn’t do it. You’re a pretty tough lady.

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A few weeks passed.

I did not pray to God. I do not know, I just could not…

Then the results came in.

It was not MS!!! (Yesss beeeh!!!)

It was something called pseudotumor cerebri.

Hypothyroidism and extra weight were putting pressure on my spine.

Not even a real tumor. There was treatment. There was a solution.

Everyone was very happy. I was happy too.

But I had learned something.

I needed to take better care of myself.

Everything outside of me, every obligation, every responsibility, every job, every person, was a fraction of my life.

The main thing was me!

Me » everything else.

I had always been sensitive to other people, always tried to help, always taken on more than I should.

But this moment was clear: I needed to take care of myself.

Physically. Psychologically. Emotionally.

I kept that promise to myself for a long time.

Then, being in a foreign country, the workload, the school, the pressure, somewhere the thread broke again.

Not as badly as before, but I still wasn’t meeting all my own needs.

A few weeks ago, my body reminded me again:

iron deficiency, heavy periods, heart palpitations, shortness of breath.

I remembered the girl in the MRI machine who held herself together for sixty minutes so she could learn the truth.

Don’t forget her, I told myself.

Your degree, your work, other people, all of it is a fraction of your life.

You come first, Filiz.

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I don’t want my body to have to remind me again. And honestly, I do not know whether I am lucky enough to be reminded again. Not everyone has that chance, right?

I am grateful to God for those reminders.

So..

Everything else can wait. Everyone else can wait.

I am only going to spend my energy on things that make me happy, on things that move me toward a better version of myself.

I already don’t keep people around me who exhaust me.

But the ones I’ve felt obligated to, the ones who drain me for no real reason, I’m going to give them only what’s necessary.

Nothing more.

I love myself. I will love myself more!

I want to spend my life with the people and things that make me feel that.

No more chasing. No more fixing. No more running after things that aren’t already moving toward me.

My happiness is the most important debt I owe.

And I intend to pay it.

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