Last Friday I had to have another MRI done. While this is not a painful thing to have done, I can tell you it gave me some anxiety issues starting the night before. I was up and down all night thinking about having it done and how uncomfortable it is for me. I had to keep praying about and asking God to help me calm my nerves and that everything would be OK.
Going into the MRI, I expected everything to be exactly like it was the last time.
Let me back track to that experience. We got to the place where I was to have the MRI. When they called me back, Shawn went back with me and waited in a little waiting room right out the MRI room. I changed from my street clothes into a hospital gown and left all of my belongings in a little locked room and Shawn had the key. I got on the table, they turned on music, and into the machine I went. The music was WIKY and was nothing but commercials :( That made for a long, long, long 45 minutes! I also had some back pain from laying there for so long.
Fast forward to Friday's MRI. The lady called me back, so Shawn got up to go with me. She told him, you can just wait out here in this lobby. What? Why can't he come back with me? So he waited out there and I went back to the MRI. She opened the door to the little room and I put my purse and bag in there and then she shut and locked the door and told me to come on back for the scan. I'm thinking "What? Aren't I going to need to change in there too?" I'm still in my work clothes, bra, shoes, earrings, long sleeve sweater and all and she says to climb on up on the table. I ask her, don't I need to change and take all this stuff off? She said no, you are fine. I immediately ask for a pillow or something for the arch of my back cause last time my back/hip area hurt really bad after laying there for so long. She can't use a pillow, but she gives me these two little wedges. Yeah, those are gonna help. NOT! And I tell her that I don't want WIKY on the headphones and ask her if she can play KLOVE. She said no, it's the radio so I can only get a few channels. She tells me what they have and I opt for 99.5, country music. I'm not sure why she can't get KLOVE, but whatever. I ask her if I need to take my long sleeve sweater off cause I know she's going to need to inject that dye into my vein later in the scan. She said not really, you can just pull the sleeve up. Um, no thank you; I hate fat sleeves at the wrist, so I took my sweater off and handed it to her. I climb up on the table and feel really weird with all that stuff on but she's the expert in this field, not me. I ask if I can take my shoes off - my feet feel heavy laying there with shoes on. So she takes them off of me and kind of flings them across me. Weird. Then I lay down and she puts the board over my pelvic area and straps me in. She starts putting me in the machine and I get almost all the way in and I start freaking out again. This might be TMI for some right here...I guess laying there with my bra on and since I have such big boobs, I felt like they were up in my throat and I was feeling suffocated, especially since she still had to put those headphone things on me in that area too. I asked her to please, please, please pull me out. I asked if I could please take my bra off. Here's another TMI for some....I figured once I took the bra off, those babies would kind of flop down to the side some. She pulled me out, I sat up, and then had to work through the three layers of shirts I had on to undo my bra in the back and pull it out through all those clothes. So I laid back down and she had to strap me back to the board and into the scan I went. Awww, much, much better! She starts the music and the scan. The whole time I'm laying there, I'm thinking Lord, please let this go fast, I'm praying, I'm singing, and I'm coughing. I'm doing everything I can to take my mind off the scan, yet still lay still. Great, the radio is doing a telethon for St. Jude's. There is hardly any music and lots of sad stories. I'm miserable! The one thing I DID like about this lady was she would tell me right before each scan/picture how long it was going to be....this scan will be 2 minutes, this next one will be 4 minutes, etc. and she would buzz in and ask if I was OK. When I heard them say "this next one will be 2 minutes then we'll pull you out for a break to put the dye in and then you'll have 10 minutes left", I felt SUCH RELIEF! I also had them change the radio channel at this point too. I asked earlier in the scan, but I don't know if she didn't hear me or couldn't come in the room. After it was over, I got up, gathered my sweater, shoes and bra and apologized 300 times for everything. She let me in the little locked room, I got dressed, and then headed to the bathroom to re-fix my hair and put on my makeup so I could head to work.
Needless to say, I'm not a fan of those MRI and so glad I'm not claustrophobic cause I'm sure it would be ten times worse!! And I hope I never have to have another one again!
No comments:
Post a Comment