It has been an interesting week. First, and foremost, of course, is the issue of moving. The realtor came by again on Wednesday and we talked about specifics – namely, what we can expect to get for this house, and what our price range would then be for buying the next one. We walked through the house and he pointed out a few things that we would definitely need to take care of before putting it on the market. The big thing is the shower stall in the master bedroom. The marble on one wall started bowing out ever so slightly shortly after we moved in, and despite their best efforts, the contractors were never able to fix it. I haven’t given it much thought ever since, but the warping has gotten a lot worse over the past few years. So we can either look into fixing it (or more likely simply replacing the shower insert entirely) ourselves, or have a future buyer decide to try to ding us for replacing a lot more than just a shower insert when we sell. Everything else is just little – basic maintenance stuff we really should have been keeping on top of anyway. So now all we have to do is decide when, and then commence with a whirlwind of painting, minor repairs, and of course packing. In anticipation I finally tackled a chore I’ve been meaning to do for years now, and purged my closet. I was fairly ruthless – if it doesn’t fit and I haven’t worn it in years, it was stuffed into paper bags and set aside for Goodwill. The end result – my half of the closet looks disturbingly bare, and Goodwill just gained nine overstuffed bags of clothes this morning, including a box of belts that went with clothing I have not owned since I cannot really remember when.

And then, of course, there is the continuing saga of my evil sinuses of doom. When I saw the ENT earlier in the month, he decided I needed to have a bunch of tests run, and sent me off to get them. First up was the hearing test, which I had last Monday. This is a far more complicated procedure than the hearing tests I remember from when I was back in grade school – when they would cram about a dozen of us into a dark little trailor, slap headphones on our ears, and tell us to raise our hands if we heard a beep. This involved two different sets of headphones, a strange little device that the doctor stuck so far down my ear I thought maybe she was trying to work her way out the other side, and a series of words whispered in ever decreasing volume that I was supposed to repeat back to her to, I assume, show that I can hear different variations in sound. By the end, the verdict was that I can hear just fine. It’s just that sometimes my sinuses like to pretend otherwise.

As for the rest of the tests, they finally sent in my referral this week, and Wednesday morning I went in for another CAT scan and an MRI. The CAT scan is nothing at all – it goes incredibly quick and aside from the fact that lying on your stomach with your hands tucked under your hips and your head tilted up as far as it can go is a wee bit uncomfortable, it went fine. The MRI, however, was quite an experience. Mainly because I had no idea how long it takes, or how loud those machines can be. Seriously. It is sort of how I envision life would be if I lived inside a video game. All manner of knocking and beeping and droning and random sounds. I must admit the only exposure I have ever had to an MRI prior to this was what I’ve seen on television medical sitcoms, which obviously should not be considered a reliable source of any sound medical expertise, but it seems odd that not a one of them ever addresses the issue of the noise. Heh.

I know there are a lot of people who freak out about an MRI, and maybe if I’d had to be completely inside one it would have been more unnerving, but it wasn’t bad at all. If I opened my eyes I could see the outer portion of the tube I was in, and only the top half of me was inside, so the part of my brain that might otherwise have wanted to go into full scale panic attack at being confined into a large and noisy metal coffin was able to content itself by plotting out how easily it would be to squirm my way out of there should something happen, and let the rest of me just focus on whether or not the latest series of thunking and beeping had any sort of potential for use as the beat for a heavy metal tune.