How To Survive An MRI

Have you been told you have to go for an MRI?  Are you scared out of your mind and want someone to tell you what it is really like?  No worries, you can survive an MRI.  I know, because I did.

Rules as they were told to me:

-no jewellery

-no make-up (eeek, seriously, I haven’t left the house without make-up in like 20 years!)

-in my case I could eat whatever I wanted.  (but yeah, like I could eat)

Hints:

Wear granny panties (more coverage sweetie) and clean socks cause that is all you will be allowed to keep on that is your own.  They will give you some oh so fashionable hospital garb.  Sexy.  Gotta find the humour right?. 

When you arrive. Pee.  You can’t be sure how long you will be in the lovely MRI tube and the last thing you want to be obsessing about when you need to keep still is how bad you’ve gotta go!

The lovely MRI lady will give you a gown to throw on and some scrub like pants.  Kinda comfy.

Here We Go:

You are ushered into the MRI room where caplets of vitamin E are taped to your super sore points.  (I was going in due to chronic pain, and to look for breaks, tears and any other super scary stuff that should not be there) These helpful little vitamins will glow like crazy in there so the Doc will know which areas are giving you the most trouble. 

Now.  Deep breath. It’s time to get into the MRI machine.  It will be okay.  Have you ever been in a tanning bed?  Okay, well stop doing that cause it’s really bad for you.  Anyway, pretend you are going for a tan.  The very comforting, friendly MRI techs hand you some ear plugs and you put those in.  MRI machines are very pingy and loud.  You then lie on the table and are asked to put your arms comfortably at your sides.  Some blankets are placed on your legs.  (this may have been just for me as I was a little shivery and shaky…chicken much?)  Your arms are then secured so you can not move.  The worst part for me is the next step when then put a neck brace type apparatus around your neck.  This encourages you to lay still.  Don’t over think it.  Breathe.  You might be offered a cloth to cover your eyes.  I declined as I needed to maintain some kind of power. A button is pushed and you are moved into the MRI tube. 

I closed my eyes and kept them closed for quite a while.  The machine pings and whirrs.  Kind of like being way to close to the bass speaker at a bad rock concert.  Sort of like walking past a small construction site.  It’s not that bad.  I even mustered up the courage to open up my eyes. Want to know what I saw?  About a foot in front of me (I’m not great with measurements, but far enough that I wasn’t freaking out) there it was, the inside of the white tube.  Pretty much what you would expect. There was a gray duct taped size line painted down the very centre.  Some nice little chips were missing from the paint. I don’t know what this says about the maintenance of this machine, but it was a fabulous distraction. I counted and re-counted those chips.  Ordered them from biggest to smallest. Whatever it took to pass the time, keep calm and keep my breathing even.  Pretty soon the jack hammer and pingy sounds started to sound like the back beat to some familiar songs.  I hummed along…in my head.  I kept still.  I counted.  One one thousand, Two one thousand, Three one thousand…to sixty.  40 times.  It worked.

Now I had to have three “series” of MRI’s.  Ribs, Upper Spine, Thorasic Spine.  I was in there for a long time my friends. According to my lovely MRI people, this is not the norm.  However, what is the norm…it gets very warm in there! Do not panic, this is just the machine doing its best work for you.  Another norm, this little MRI machine does not sit still. It moves around just a little bit from time to time.  Not like a sea sicky kind of thing, just minor adjustments to relocate you. 

Soon, it’s over.  You hear a little voice asking if you are Okay in there.  Then asking you to hold tight. The Doc is just going to see if he is happy with your images.  He is, and they push that magic button to get you out.

You go on home, stopping on the way to reward yourself with a big ol muffin and coffee. You deserve it!

I just got my results.  Like my MRI, not great, but not as bad as anticipated.  A little bit of arthritis.  I plan to kick it’s butt.

I know this is not my usual kind of post, but if just one person stumbles across it when they need to hear “It will be Okay”, then it is worth the break from the humour. 

You can survive an MRI.

Be well.

Mwah!