All posts by Eliana Teel

Eliana Teel is a Communication major with a focus in filmmaking at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and interns with 148 Films. She’s passionate about women’s involvement in the film industry and ensuring the stories of the underrepresented are told, along with the complicated intersectionality between race and class.

Afflictions of American Health Care – by Eliana Teel

When I was seven years old, I had my first MRI, or Magnetic Resonance Imaging – a medical imaging machine that generates internal images of the body. The tubular machine was quite large in comparison to my petite body. I can still remember how scared I was as they placed headphones twice the size of my head over my ears and pushed me back into the small cylinder. Or how the nurse called the IV that shot cold, contrast dye throughout my bloodstream a “butterfly clip” to ease the nerves. The MRI was ordered to examine my neck and upper spine because I was experiencing a lot of unusual pain there for a child that young. What my family and I didn’t expect was to be in that room for two more hours as they caught a glimpse of something concerning in my lower back.

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