Recently this became an issue when my doctor sent me for a MRI. Technically this is a state-of-the-art x-ray machine that gives 3-D images of body parts. Untechnically it is more like a extra-long casket for a basketball player.

This was an older MRI machine that travels in a huge van from hospital to hospital in rural areas. The newer MRI’s are more open .

After putting on a short gown that barely covered my equilateral humps, I had to lie on a narrow tray facing a dark tunnel.

"How long will I be in there?" I asked.

"About two hours in all."

"Can you get me out quickly if I call?"

"Yes," the operator said. "There’s a microphone inside."

Before disappearing behind a partition, the man pushed a button that drew me slowly inside the cylinder. It was stuffy and uncomfortably snug. My shoulders involuntarily curved upward. Less than six inches distanced my nose from the ceiling. My arms were forced rigidly straight.

"Bring me out," I called loudly as my heart raced and my breathing quickened.

In seconds the table moved to the open air.

"I’m sorry, but I don’t know if I can do this," I said apologetically.

In the recesses of my mind was the image of an Emory student who years ago was buried alive in a box with a little light and a plastic air hose. The bad guy wanted a ransom and she was there for days. Even though the girl was eventually rescued, for weeks I had dreams about being buried alive. I never thought of it much again until this day I was in that tube.

Eventually I agreed to try again. It was a mind game. I closed my eyes and momentarily pretended I was on the beach. The MRI made a startling jack-hammer noise that jolted me to reality. I called again to come out.

On the third try I quoted everything I had ever memorized. It was amazing how lines from literature as well as passages from the Bible came to my memory.

On the fourth try, I was determined to stay. The images my doctor needed to access the spread of the cancer were completed. As I opened the door to the bright sunshine, I felt like a released prisoner.

Let it be known that when the men in the dark suits shut the top of my coffin, they had better be sure I am really dead … I mean dead dead. Otherwise, Superwoman is going to raise the roof.