Of MRI’s and Marc

Knock knock knock

Bang bang bang

Knock knock

That’s what I recall the MRI sounding like when I got my back imaged 5 years ago. Imagine my surprise when instead of knocking and banging, I heard a whirring and very loud humming, all amplified by being in a very resonant space. Couple that with the fact that I was VERY uncomfortable, and this MRI experience was not as pleasant as the first. I will say that I felt less claustrophobic, which probably had to do with the fact that I was face down and couldn’t really see much around me. I could, however, touch the sides of the machine if I moved my arms out . . . .I made sure to keep my elbows in!

When an MRI of the breast is done, the breasts have to hang down in order for the machine to get a clearer image. As such, I was on my stomach with my arms making an “o” over my head and face supported by a padded pillow thing, similar to what a masseuse uses. Then the girls were in a rectangular frame thing that had a plastic vertical supporting bar in the middle. Holy cow, that was so uncomfortable! Not only that, the frame was made for larger people, so in order for my armpits to be over the top of the frame, they had to be hyperextended. All of that was enough to make me uncomfortable. Add to that the fact that I have a bulging disc (discovered in the first MRI) and can’t really lay on my stomach for any long period of time, and I was not doing so well. I was on an incline, so that helped. But that also meant that my knees were taking alot of the weight. After about 15 minutes, my knees were killing me, so I very carefully extended my legs to stretch them and to relieve the pressure on my back.

“PLEASE STOP MOVING YOUR LEGS! YOU HAVE TO BE STILL!”

I felt like a child being reprimanded.

“Sorry, my back is hurting me.” That didn’t really matter to them, they just wanted to get clear pictures. So, I sucked it up, tried to focus on the music and told myself that this really WAS an important test.

Speaking of music, apparently I’m the first person to request that they play a CD while in the MRI machine. Really? That’s so surprising to me! Seems like music would be a great way to pass the time. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. This time I chose Marc Anthony. In retrospect, choosing to listen salsa music in a place where you can’t move maybe wasn’t the best idea! Anyway, the crazy machine was SO LOUD that I could only sort of hear the music. By the end of the 40 minutes, my head felt all woozy and weird from all of the noise.

As if all of the above wasn’t enough weirdness and discomfort, they injected a tracer dye into my arm towards the end of the test. It was very cold and I could feel it moving through my veins and branching out to the different vessels. It was very weird!

Needless to say, I was very glad when the test was over and I could be upright. I had to sit for about 20 minutes to wait for my head to stop feeling so woozy, and then I went on my merry way.

Stay tuned for the results of the MRI . . . the results were good . . .they were very good =)