I'm not sure why I keep blogging about medical stuff here, since this blog was started as a place to share my wanderings, not my health problems. Chalk it up to too much imagination, but I will admit to wanting to leave a trail, so should I kick the bucket too soon, I will have left ample evidence of my demise.
The MRI this morning was intense. It involved an actual doctor, a med student, a tech, the CT Scanner, dye injected into my hip, and the MRI machine. It took two hours. The first part was with the CT machine, then the numbing and dye injection, some more CT scans, then off that table, down the hall (holding your gown closed to avoid mooning the world), and onto the MRI table for the real fun.
I don't know if there's another test left out there to image the area of the pain, but if it's worse than the MRI in terms of playing with my head, I might just decide to become addicted to Vicodin and say to hell with it.
You're slid into the machine so far that you are complete inside the diameters of a coffin. It even has the curved lid you'd expect to see if you found yourself in a Hitchcock buried alive narrative of today. It's not nearly as cushy though. The MRI might as well go ahead and embrace its coffinness and drape the place in satin cushions.
The only thing the MRI offers that I assume you cannot buy in a coffin (although I'm not ruling out its existence) is a little fan right at your face, blowing cool air on you, begging you not to freak out as it chugs away.
So you're put into your coffin with no more than a few inches between your head and the top, and the jackhammer starts up. The jackhammer sounds will run almost constantly, although they vary in pitch and cadence. You've been equipped with a set of headphones ostensibly to try to keep you from going deaf, because while they'll ask you what XM station you prefer, you aren't going to be able to make out the lyrics of the music.
I went for 80s. She plopped them on my head (pre-coffin slide-in) and said, "I'll change it to the 80s in just a sec." Not sure what it was on, but it was Elton singing "Your Song" all nice and soothing.
So she clicks me over to the 80s once I'm good and buried alive and trying to focus on that fan and "how wonderful life is while you're in the world" and suddenly, in perfect timing, I go from that to the first strains of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." Ok, so note to self: do not choose 80s next time.
The ongoing live burial with jackhammer means the only thing you can do is close your eyes and try to concentrate on the music, even though your feet are taped together at this weird pidgin-toed angle to get the best angle on that hip socket and your back is screaming at you, threatening to start spasming at any moment, and your hip, shot up with numbing agent on top and dye all the way down into the socket tissues, feels crazy awful.
So, after AC/DC, I get a song it takes me a bit of puzzling to work out, which was "No More Words" by Berlin, and then "Never Surrender" by Corey Hart, and then "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benetar. I'm getting bombarded by jackhammer sounds and 80s fight songs.
The MRI this morning was intense. It involved an actual doctor, a med student, a tech, the CT Scanner, dye injected into my hip, and the MRI machine. It took two hours. The first part was with the CT machine, then the numbing and dye injection, some more CT scans, then off that table, down the hall (holding your gown closed to avoid mooning the world), and onto the MRI table for the real fun.
I don't know if there's another test left out there to image the area of the pain, but if it's worse than the MRI in terms of playing with my head, I might just decide to become addicted to Vicodin and say to hell with it.
You're slid into the machine so far that you are complete inside the diameters of a coffin. It even has the curved lid you'd expect to see if you found yourself in a Hitchcock buried alive narrative of today. It's not nearly as cushy though. The MRI might as well go ahead and embrace its coffinness and drape the place in satin cushions.
The only thing the MRI offers that I assume you cannot buy in a coffin (although I'm not ruling out its existence) is a little fan right at your face, blowing cool air on you, begging you not to freak out as it chugs away.
So you're put into your coffin with no more than a few inches between your head and the top, and the jackhammer starts up. The jackhammer sounds will run almost constantly, although they vary in pitch and cadence. You've been equipped with a set of headphones ostensibly to try to keep you from going deaf, because while they'll ask you what XM station you prefer, you aren't going to be able to make out the lyrics of the music.
I went for 80s. She plopped them on my head (pre-coffin slide-in) and said, "I'll change it to the 80s in just a sec." Not sure what it was on, but it was Elton singing "Your Song" all nice and soothing.
So she clicks me over to the 80s once I'm good and buried alive and trying to focus on that fan and "how wonderful life is while you're in the world" and suddenly, in perfect timing, I go from that to the first strains of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." Ok, so note to self: do not choose 80s next time.
The ongoing live burial with jackhammer means the only thing you can do is close your eyes and try to concentrate on the music, even though your feet are taped together at this weird pidgin-toed angle to get the best angle on that hip socket and your back is screaming at you, threatening to start spasming at any moment, and your hip, shot up with numbing agent on top and dye all the way down into the socket tissues, feels crazy awful.
So, after AC/DC, I get a song it takes me a bit of puzzling to work out, which was "No More Words" by Berlin, and then "Never Surrender" by Corey Hart, and then "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benetar. I'm getting bombarded by jackhammer sounds and 80s fight songs.
I decide I'll have to switch tactics and begin a virtual walk-though of Almeda Mall, starting from our usual parking space near the Penney's that empties into the area by K-B Toys, Visual Changes Hair Salon, H&H, the Hobby store, the camera place, and B Dalton. Then Woolworths... etc. Between this and getting tickled that Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" is now fighting to be heard...
When it's finally done, I wasn't quite sure I could get up, but I was relived the back didn't start spasming and ruin the test so we had to do it again. I felt about 90 trying to get up and off the table and realized the hip numbing meant I'd be swinging it around even more like Frankenstein than usual for the rest of the day. I definitely must've been half-dozing because I had a hard time focusing on getting that little key into the lock to retrieve my clothes.
But it's done. Now all I can do is hope it actually SHOWS something that we can start to work on fixing.
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