My father drives me to an MRI and back, November 6, 2026
Part II of a trilogy
By Omar Nabil Metwally, MD
Friday, November 6, 2026
Twelve hours after I walked out of the University of Michigan against medical advice, my father picked me up and drove me to Dearborn for an MRI.
I recorded the ride. I called the recording “The Truth.” I meant it as a joke. It turned out to be accurate.
I. Cage Match, No Cage
I-94 at night. Construction on both shoulders, traffic merging from the left, and semi trucks one after another, like a fight for your life.
“It’s basically a cage match,” I said.
“There is no cage,” said my father. “This is nothing. What time is it? Nine. Compared to rush hour, this is nothing.”
A truck ahead of us was showering gravel on everybody around it. The gravel kept bouncing from one car to the next, long after the truck had passed.
I have reported so many semi trucks. I have given license plates. I have fifteen minutes of footage of one truck’s road rage. Nobody cares. The only people who care are the lawyers on the billboards.
“You have to leave more space between you and the car in front of you,” I told him.
“I think this is a reasonable distance,” he said.
I told him about the hallway, the water, all of it. He listened. Then he said:
“You’re taking it on yourself too much. The amount of anger. You can’t live that way.”
Then the GPS told him to go one way, and he went another, and his way was faster.
II. The Tube
The MRI was at the imaging center in Dearborn. I will tell you about the man who runs it some other time.
I lay in the tube and tried not to move. It is hard not to move when you are in that much pain. It is harder when your father has made you laugh.
“I was moving around a lot in there,” I told him afterward. “I had to keep finding ways not to move. The pain, and the laughing.”
“I shouldn’t have made you laugh,” he said.
“I don’t want to have to sue you for messing up the quality of that MRI. Then I’ll have to go back for another one.”
III. The Back Seat
On the way home I asked if I could lie down in the back seat.
“Okay, so this is the bumpy part,” I said. “This is where it really starts hurting.”
“Slow down?”
“No, no, it’s okay.” Then: “Yeah. Slow down.”
From the back seat you mostly see billboards. Lawyer. Health system. Lawyer. A truck-accident lawyer who looks like Anderson Cooper did when he was young. A bank. A homeless shelter.
“Wow,” I said. “Just one after another. Healthcare systems and lawyers. And then a bank. And then a homeless shelter. The American dream. Keeping Michigan beautiful.”
IV. The Airline
We passed Corewell, which sits right next to the airport. That gave me an idea.
“Instead of trying to make a healthcare system, why don’t we just make an airline? Fly American citizens to Vietnam for high-quality, affordable healthcare, and then bring them back. All inclusive.”
My father took it from there. You pay one quarter of what you pay here, including the flight. The tourism is on us. Your meals are on us. Your hotel. Five thousand dollars for the full body: the plumbing, two hips, a new heart. You come back a new man.
“You can get married, if you want to get married,” he said. “It’s an extra thousand dollars.”
“And you can deliver,” I said. “They have a delivery package in Saigon. You deliver, and the baby is on us.”
“The baby is on us. You don’t have to be pregnant.”
Then a lightning bolt went down my leg, from deep in my spine to the sole of my right foot, and that was the end of the airline.
V. Five Kids
“Ouch. Ouch. No, it’s not the labrum. My labrum is torn, but that does not explain this amount of pain.”
He could see how angry I was.
“Sorry, Dad,” I said. “I’m just in so much pain. I feel like nobody can help me.”
“I really feel terrible when I see you unhappy,” he said. “Think about how much you love your daughter. Imagine you’re seeing her in pain. This is exactly how I feel.”
I had never thought of it that way.
“I look at her,” I said, “and I think of her drawing. Being funny. Joking. Building. Laughing. Singing. Talking in a tough voice.”
“Imagine if she’s in pain, how much you’d be hurting. That is how I feel. I want to do everything I can to make you happy.”
“Thanks, Dad. You’re a great dad.”
“I have five kids,” he said, “and I feel the same for all five. When one of you is hurting, I can’t sleep. I spend the whole night thinking about what we can do.”
Then he talked about my mother. She gives everything. She never asks for anything for herself. She is always giving.
VI. The Duplicate
“I told you before,” he said. “You are a duplicate of me.”
“That’s kind of scary,” I said. “And funny.”
“No, seriously. You’re very intelligent and very sensitive. In a lot of things, you are exactly like me.”
And then: “Honestly, I did not know you were so funny until tonight.”
“Tonight,” I said, “was the funniest and most painful night of my life.”
VII. Exit 181B
Michigan Avenue, 0.2 miles. Purple lights on the freeway, super bright, very distracting.
“Alright,” I said. “I think this is ours. 181B. Home sweet home.”
“Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.”
“This is where I’m going to turn off the recording.”
“What recording?” said my father.
“What recording?”