Creepy? Naw, it's just what the insides of you look like. I was endlessly fascinated with my brain MRI - looking at all the bits, trying to figure out what they were.

Suzy, if this is your first MRI of any kind, you probably won't be able to figure it out. It takes an experienced radiologist to make sense of an MRI, and the spinal ones are even more confusing than the brain ones.

What you're going to be looking for is lighter gray areas inside the dark gray areas in the spinal column. The spinal MRI will show you slices of your spine, along with the vertebrae surrounding it. You'll see an oval of spinal cord with a light ring around it - that's normal. What's not normal is any light spot in the middle of the cord.

But you'll end up driving yourself crazy trying to figure it out. Don't worry about it - just wait for the doctor, and he'll tell you what it all means.