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This is an archive collection of entries from  my main personal blog, My Mundane Mid-Life.


This particular entry is from March 30, 2006.



MRI's #3 & #4

OK, today's experience was totally different, and not in a good way.

Gowns. I hate gowns. The metal in my zipper was too near the scanning sites, so I had to take my pants off and put on two gowns, one reversed of the other. Over my long-sleeve shirt. And, of course, no pants but my socks & shoes! I look like a dork, and this is going to be warm as hell...

In a nutshell - No Truck. I was in the MRI unit inside the hospital itself. That implies: older machine, older machine = "more used" = maybe not as well maintained or has more "miles" on it = LOUDER.

Holy crap, the machine was loud. I had ear plugs. Didn't help. Better sound quality headphones, less sound absorption from outside noise. Not that I could hear the music while the machine was running. I could only hear pieces of songs in the gaps between scans. And what am I hearing? "King of the Road"? WTF?

OK, so on top of loud, let's add heat. It was 69 degrees outside today, so you know that mechanical plants just can't keep up with a 30 degree swing in outside temperature, so the room was warm. Now, when you're inside a tube in a warm room, and the only means of air circulation is an internal flan blower that's just blowing room air, you know it's not as comfortable.

So lets talk comfort. I learned something about MRI's, and that they use a "coil" in their process to help... with something, I don't know, focusing the impulses... probably something like that. Anyway, the MRI's tonight were for my Thoracic and Lumbar spine sections (last night - Brain and Cervical spine). Last night, I had a whole cage that surrounded my head and sort of "locked" me into the table, It had this nice mirror arrangement so that if I looked straight ahead, instead of seeing the inside of the tube that was just inches from my face, it acted like a "periscope" and I was able to view down the length of my body, toward the door to the room. It made me comfortable and not claustrophobic. Well, tonight, no head "thingy". I had to go into the tube without my little "periscope". Great. So, they gave a bulb device to squeeze to alert them to get me out of the tube if I start to panic. Fortunately, they guy tonight (who was the tech last night that gave me the contrast dye, so we're like buddies now) did the lumbar scans first. That put me the furthest into the tube, which was good because I was almost poking out the back-end, so I could actually see parts of the ceiling behind the machine. That calmed me down, and scan proceeded without a hitch.

Except for the noise.

Then, as the scan progressed, I realized my left leg was spasming (twitching). I tried my best to stop it, but I just couldn't. I'm lucky that it started during the thoracic part, so that any movement isn't being translated to my spine. The scans are good. The tech knows it's happening, so he's checking the scans as we go. I stopped counting after 20 twitches... and it's close to double that. Then the scan were over and it was time for the contrast dye. He used the same vein in my hand and did a great job. I mentioned that I thought the pads under my knees were higher when I was out in the truck, so he built a series of cushions to get my knees higher, and we start the final scans, starting with the thoracic this time. As he's moving me, slightly, further into the tube for the scan, I realize that my knees are hitting the front of the machine!. As the scan completes and he gets on the little intercom to tell me that lumbar scan is next, I frantically try to tell him not to move the bed because all I can envision is getting jammed into the tube. He came out, pulled a few cushions out, and we finished the scans.

Did the additional pads help the twitching? No. Well, barely. It turns out that there was some movement on the scans, but it was "within limits", so the scans weren't garbage. I was soaking wet when I got out of that machine.

I made it. My head was still buzzing from the sound, something I couldn't shake for an hour.

I had to wait in the Men's Gowned area for someone to take me XRay to get the supplemental XRays, which was no issue at all. I went and changed and met Carol out in the Radiology Reception room. The room was empty - except for Carol - and basically dark. They'd shut down! Carol's watching TV alone, waiting for me! Nobody manning the desk - it was dark.

So, that's it. Done with all 4 MRI's. Glad it's over, but all of my nervousness about the process was just not knowing what it was like. That, and the fear that my legs would twitch, ruining a scan and we would have to do it all over again.

Hope I don't need to do this again soon.

posted at 09:35 PM | Link | Mundane | § |


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This Blog was last updated Friday December 18, 2009 13:03:12 CDT (-06:00 GMT)
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