Me, from Topto Bottom

After certain formalities involving my Visa card and a brief medical survey, the procedure takes about 20 minutes. Naked inside the always tricky hospital gown, I hop onto a narrow table and rest my head upon a soft pillow. The scanner-a $1.2 million GE Lightspeed Plus-stands at my feet, a low, squarish device with a patient-sized hole in the middle. The table moves through the scanner, snapping 3-D images of bones and internal organs from all angles. Non-invasive doesn't necessarily mean comfy, however. I'm not permitted to move, or even breathe, at certain points. I have to tuck my arms narrowly above my head so I can fit through the circular opening without losing an elbow.



As I move through the scanner, it speaks, telling me to inhale and hold my breath for up to 30 seconds. (Note to self: Does the fact that I find this difficult in itself say something about my health?) The machine works with the same whirling flashes of light and high-pitched whine that we have come to expect since Bones scanned Kirk on the old "Star Trek."
I went in unworried, survived the scan intact-and then spent three days considerably anxious. The results, when they come, consist of 172 black-and-white cross sections of my body on a CD-ROM disc, and a written report. On my PC, the pictures play like a low-budget horror flick, a moving Rorschach image of the guts of me. Fascinating, but they could be leftover autopsy photos for all I know. Wading into the medical jargon of the report, I learn that the scan finds my heart's pathways open, my lungs and sinuses clear, my spine and bones normal, and my liver, kidneys, spleen, and pancreas all in surprisingly good shape. (Never trusted that spleen.) Then I find mention of "several nonspecific nodes scattered throughout the neck." Nonspecific?



The next day's doctor-patient chat is reassuring. The physician tells me that the nodes in my neck don't present a problem, and are likely the result of an old throat infection or even dental problems. With a heart like mine, "You can eat steak tonight." By the way, I ask him, do you ever find anything bad with the self-scan patient? "We find two or three tumors a week," he says.



All of which leaves me physically fine but philosophically uneasy. Are we taking charge of our healthcare here, or being played by the medical marketing machine? Both must be true. No doubt these scans save lives, at least occasionally, and Americans won't stand for any system that denies us access to technology. But most of us will live long and prosper without full-body scans, and we'd probably be better off just seeing the doc once a year and cutting back on the french fries. But hey, can you even put a pricetag on health, or at least on seeing your healthy spleen?