I saved $19.30 with coupons and rebates this weekend!

Plus I had an MRI.

I’m probably about to tell you waaaaaay too much medical information about myself. Or maybe not enough, depending on your level of fascination about such things.

Anyway! I got the lab results back from my annual physical last week. And it turns out I’m about a quart low on whatever it is that’s supposed to squirt out of my thyroid. So I’m now taking thyroid medication. Every morning. For the rest of my life. Like an old person. At least like an old person with an underperforming thyroid.

I mentioned this fact to a handful of friends and … um … all of Facebook last week. And it turns out a number of people I know are hypothyroidic (if that’s the adjective form) as well. And they universally claim that their diagnosis and subsequent better living through pills completely reignited their saggy old lives. Like me, they just thought they’d become the kind of person who’s chronically rundown and plagued by dry skin and stubborn bodyfat, among other more personal problems. And everything I’ve read about the drug therapy I’m on tells me that the small indignities I thought were just the cost of living into your 40s are probably tied to easily correctible thyroid issues. So I’m eagerly awaiting the second coming of my youth once the meds kick in.

In the mean time, I also have another problem: too much of some other chemical being squirted out of my brain. And apparently the first line of defense is a look at the damn thing. And the easiest way to get in my head and poke around without completely collapsing my facelift is an MRI.

Having an MRI is like being buried alive in a coffin that screams at you.

Here’s how it works: You’re dressed in an embarrassing little hospital gown. You’re immobilized on a sliding deli tray. You’re squirted full of dye. You’re slid into a tiny little tube where you don’t dare open your eyes in case you suddenly discover you’re claustrophobic. You’re told to lie perfectly still as unseen Thor-like monsters have anvil-and-garbage-can fights mere millimeters from your ears. And you don’t … dare … move … for a full 45 minutes.

But you wanna hear something funny? I actually fell asleep about 10 minutes into mine on Saturday.

And when I woke up, I had what turned out to be an all-day sinus headache. Plus a bleeding hole in my arm where the dye needle had been. Plus a Grammy Award. Oh, wait. That greedy Beyonce took all the Grammys. So apparently Squirty Brain and the Bleedy Armhole won’t be going platinum this year.