Last night I experienced my first MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), an interesting milestone in the journey to grasp why the persistent sciatica pain has been plaguing me for nearly two months.

For the uninitiated, an MRI is like a giant camera that uses powerful magnets and radio waves to create detailed images of the body. It’s an ingenious piece of tech that essentially maps out internal structures by analyzing how the body’s molecules respond to magnetic fields. In my case, it was a deep dive into the anatomy of my spine to locate the root cause of the nerve trouble.

The scan required me to stay completely still while the machine did its noisy work, clanging and beeping like something you’d hear inside a 1950s sci-fi spaceship. Surprisingly, I managed to keep perfectly still throughout the scan, which I wasn’t entirely confident about being able to pull off when I first lay down on the machine’s white sled. The young technician operating the MRI was forthcoming and soft-spoken, his demeanor helped settle any trepidation I might have had when the sled slid into the imaging tunnel.

I was provided with giant headphones that played muzak – bland elevator tunes – and the technician kept a watchful eye on me through a monitor in the clinic’s control room to ensure I wasn’t inadvertently fidgeting, as this would have blurred the images. Of course, lying there for an extended period, about 16 minutes, gave my mind time to wander. Toward the very end of the scan, I started having obsessive thoughts about sneezing or coughing or having some muscle twitch involuntarily.

Fortunately, none of this happened, and I made it through without disrupting the imaging process.

For those unfamiliar, the sciatic nerve is the body’s largest nerve, running from the lower spine like the root of a tree through the buttocks and down each leg. The sciatic nerve is responsible for much of the sensation and movement we have in the lower body. When unnaturally compressed, it becomes inflamed and can cause anything from mild tingling to severe, shooting/radiating pain – a condition aptly named sciatica and with symptoms I have become all too familiar with.

In the meantime, I’m preparing for today’s cortisone injection, delivered directly into the right buttock. This targeted anti-inflammatory treatment aims to calm the nerve at its source and hopefully provide some much-needed relief.

If nothing else, this ordeal has humbled me insofar that I realize now how fragile my body has become with age and that it isn’t bouncing back or self-healing as it once did. I suppose this is to be expected and I believe I touched on this very topic in my book, The Aging Man’s Survival Guide.