MRI and My Happy Place

Today, I have written my 100th post. Yay! I was planning on doing the ever-so-popular post, "100 Things About Me". However, I am too lazy, and busy, to write that post right now. Sorry friends. Maybe some other time.

Instead, I will tell you all about my experience having an MRI on my brain this morning.

I spoke with several people about their experience having an MRI, and they were all different. My sister had one on her back not too long ago, but her hospital has an "open" MRI machine, and our hospital does not.

I talked to a girl at our church who had one done recently at our hospital, and it was on her brain. She had to have an IV, so I wondered if I would have to have one also. If you are a new reader, or have just forgotten (although, I don't see HOW that would be possible!), you can read here about my last experience with an IV when I went in for a heart cath. If you are reading it for the first time, you may want to be sure you are sitting down. Good times...

I tried not to think too much about what was going to happen, and just figured that if I did have to have an IV for the MRI, I would just deal with it then. I was not going to worry about it, because there wasn't anything I could do about it anyway!

So, Hubs took me to the hospital bright and early this morning. I was able to wear my own clothes, I just couldn't wear anything with metal in it. I signed a paper saying that I did not have any metal devices implanted in my body (one of the items listed was an eyelid spring.... OUCH!) and that I had removed all jewelry, including any body piercings. Fortunately for me, I have not jumped on the "let's pierce strange parts of my body" band-wagon, so other than my single set of earrings that I had left at home, there was nothing to remove. I also had to say whether I was claustrophobic or not.

While I do feel a little claustrophobic thinking about being inside of a small tube (who wouldn't?!) I can safely ride in an elevator, or in an airplane without freaking out, so I said that I was not claustrophobic.  I have also been inside of a tanning bed in years past, and I was okay with that, but you are able to open that if you want to, so that is not quite the same thing.

They made me lie down on this very skinny table, and place my head in a certain area. I was going to have a plastic "cage" like thing on my head, and I knew that would sort of freak me out if I saw it going on, so I asked for a cloth to cover my eyes.

They placed a wedge pillow under my knees, which helped make it more comfortable for me to lie flat on my back.

They gave me a bulb I could squeeze if I needed them for any reason. That made me feel better, knowing that if I did start to panic, I would be taken out.

They also gave me gigantic headphones so I could listen to music while the machine was going off. She assured me that I would still hear the machine, as it was VERY loud, but it would help muffle the sound a little.

I asked her if the air would be "stuffy" inside the tube, and she said that it wouldn't be, that there is a fan that blows a cool breeze over you. It also was not dark inside the tube like I thought it would be, which certainly helps make it better.

When it was time to start, I had the cloth over my eyes so I couldn't see as I was being slid into the tube. I could feel the sides of my arms hitting the tube, and she told me that they might. It was rather tight in there. Since I was having the scan done on my brain, I only had to be in up to my waist. My legs were not inside at all.

She was right. The machine was VERY loud. She would talk to me during the scan, and tell me how long each test would be. This way, I knew exactly how long I had to be absolutely still each time. She had also told me ahead of time that the entire scan would take about a 1/2 hour, so as she told me each time, I could kind of keep track of how long I had been in there.

The noises sounded like loud beeps and jack hammers going off. The beeps were kind of similar to a child's annoying, noisy toy that you couldn't shut off. The last test shook me around a bit, and was the loudest, but the shortest of them all.

During the time I was in there, I did start to feel just a little panicky, thinking about how I was inside a tube, and I couldn't sit up. I went to my "happy place" and prayed, and concentrated on listening to the soft music, and I was able to make it through.

Just so you know, my happy place is as follows: I am at the beach, sitting on a rock, and I am watching the ocean. The waves are crashing against the rocks, and I can hear seagulls in the distance. The sun is shining on me, and the sky is incredibly blue. There are palm trees in my happy place, so it's like a combination of Florida and Maine, which are my two favorite places. Feel free to use my happy place if you want to the next time you need one. I promise I won't mind :)

It really was just a 1/2 hour like she said, and I did not have to have an IV. Much better than I thought it would be!

Hubs had to wait in the waiting room, as he couldn't come back with me. As I entered the waiting room, he said, "Are you done already?" He had gotten into a game on his phone, and wasn't quite ready to leave yet. Ha!

Now, the waiting begins to get my test results.

Can I just stay in my happy place until then?