MRI Guy

Although my knee has been slowly getting better over the last two weeks, and I’ve felt good enough to stop using the crutches, I still haven’t been able to completely straighten my leg without pain. So I decided to get an MRI. I figured I might as well do it here since it’s probably ten times cheaper. Some random web searches indicate that back home, without insurance, an MRI could cost a few hundred bucks. Here in Shanghai, I scanned my knee for RMB300 ($37.50). Oh, I also had to pay to see the doctor first. That cost RMB17 ($2.12).

The scan itself is a pain. You have to sit there with your leg stuck in this machine for about 40 minutes, and you’re not supposed to move. The machine makes all these whirring and buzzing noises, then it’s quiet, then it starts clicking and clucking, then it whirs again. I fell asleep and was awoken at least three times with a start – the kind where you jolt awake and your body tries to leap into action like there are commandos invading your bedroom. Each time I jerked my leg a bit and got worried they were going to have to start over again, but nobody said anything. In fact, most of the time I was alone. A doctor came in every 10-15 minutes to check on the computer and see that it was still working, then he’d leave again. I wondered why the computer still had a drive for a 3.5 inch disk – you know, the kind everyone stopped using about 3-4 years ago at the latest.

That was yesterday. Tomorrow they will have my results. Dr Zhai, who referred me to the MRI and was the type of person who immediately gains my trust (I don’t know, he just seemed to know what he was doing), gave me his cell number and told me to call to get his recommendation. Let’s hope I don’t need surgery. It costs about RMB10,000.