The MRI 
A scan is not the whole story.

Now annually, I lie perfectly still while a machine takes pictures of my brain.

By now, I’ve had dozens of MRIs. I know the rhythm by heart.
Thunk.
Thunk-thunk.
Whirrrrr.

The sounds have become strangely familiar, almost like an old song.

When I was twenty-nine, those scans represented everything I feared. Every appointment felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting for someone else to tell me whether I still had a future.

I was working in cancer genomics at the time, surrounded by DNA sequences, mutation lists, and survival curves. I understood statistics. I knew probabilities.

What I didn’t understand was waiting. Over the years, something unexpected happened.
The MRI didn’t become less important. I became bigger than it.

The scan is still a photograph of my brain. It is not a photograph of my friendships, the runs I’ve completed, the coffee I’ve shared with my daughter, the patients I’ve met in Peru and Kenya, or the laughter around a dinner table twenty years after my diagnosis.

Medicine measures disease extraordinarily well.  Life measures something else.

I still hold my breath for a few seconds when the radiologist begins telling me the results of the MRI.

Then I remember something that took me years to learn. Hope isn’t found in a perfect scan. Hope is what carries you to the next one.
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Thank you for reading.
Until next time, keep catching the light.
— Yaron

I'm a cancer researcher, brain tumor survivor, writer, and patient advocate.

Monthly Reflections is where I share my thoughts on the places where science, stories, and survival meet.

IN THIS ISSUE
* THE MRI
A scan is not the whole story.
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