Surviving the MRIs

 

 

 

 

 

Nobody looks forward to an MRI or likes the process. What’s to like about being strapped onto a table that slides into a tunnel so tight that your arms touch the sides. The form asks ‘Are you claustrophobic?’ Well yes, but do I have a choice?  The ear plugs and additional headphones aren’t enough to drown out the jack – hammering of the machine. ‘What music would you like to listen to?’ sounds rather re-assuring the first time – but after that first experience you realise that nothing stops the noise. Nothing. It is deafening.  In fact, you can’t hear the music at all while the machine is hammering and whining away around you.

 Luckily I have had many such MRI events over the past 10 years. I have now learned to meditate which seems to work! I joke with the assistant who works hard to calm patients down on the way in. She often has to deal with hysteria on the table. I feel a responsibility to re-assure her that I will be fine. I am. It’s all in the mind - I remind myself - every 5 minutes.

I’m interrupted by the voice in my headphones - ‘Nearly done – you’re doing really well – just 3 more minutes ‘.  My mind wander dangerously into a rough patch of idle thinking –“What would happen if there were an earthquake?’ I couldn’t get out – for a brain scan they fasten your head firmly inside a cage so that you can’t move. No! No!  Back up, back up you were doing so well…focus – stop the feelings of fear. ‘All done, we’ll get you out now’ says the voice in my headphones. Just in time I think.

It gets easier with practice. I haven’t ever died during an MRI so my brain feels that the process must be safe and my fight or flight response is dulled slightly. I will keep having scans until I need another procedure. Checking how much the tumour has grown is important and after 10 years it hangs over me like a sword of Damocles’, but I’m lucky that I can be sure about everything in my brain because I see it every two years. Most people can’t say that! Hopefully there will be an alternative to operating by the time it gets big enough to remove again.

Now I wait for my appointment with Edward Mee to see the scans and hear the news and discuss the options. No-one will give you a hint at the radiology centre. So I still won’t know for two more weeks. My wish is that it will have disappeared, stopped growing or at least slowed down…I would also like to win Lotto…!