“Do you hear what I hear?”

Saturday, 11/20/10

I went to the hospital and checked in at 8:00 AM so that I could fill out another stack of redundant paperwork before my MRI. The tech came and escorted me down the hall to a dressing room near the machine. I was able to keep my tee shirt on, but the jeans had to come off because of all the metal, e.g. button, zipper and rivets. They gave me two of the one size fits none hospital gowns, one to cover the front and other to cover the back. I walked into the adjacent room and laid down on the table connected to the MRI, shading my eyes from the bright lights above and listening to the chirping of the machine in its resting state.

The room was quite chilly and the technician draped a warm blanket over me.  The equipment is very noisy while in operation and she gave me a pair of headphones that played Christmas music for the duration of the scan. I placed my arms above my head as the table moved into the machine. I thought the chamber for the PET scan was confining, but that was nothing compared to the MRI chamber. My face was about four or five inches from the opening and my arms were held tight against the sides of the chamber. My oncologist had ordered a scan with and without contrast so I figured the whole process might take a hour. The technician did a couple of quick scans and then pulled me out of the chamber for about 15 minutes while a radiologist across town read the images and decided what protocol should be used for the remaining scans. I could be wrong, but “reviewing protocols” sounded like code for a Starbucks run.

The table moved back inside the chamber and three more scans were performed. I hadn’t taken any Aleve that morning and my back was really starting to hurt from lying on the hard table so long. In retrospect, I should have taken a muscle relaxer and maybe some Vicodin…paging Dr. House. Toward the end of the third scan I couldn’t feel my right arm because the gown was tight through my shoulders and it was also pressed up against the machine.  I hadn’t eaten anything that morning and just had a little water to drink, yet another mistake. I still can’t feel my arm and now my heart starts beating faster and my chest is feeling tighter with each breath. I was having a hard time catching my breath. I’m usually not claustrophobic, but I could feel the anxiety building and I knew if something didn’t change soon I was going to panic. I kept trying to tell the technician, I can’t breathe, I can’t catch my breath. Of course the response I got was a patronizing voice saying “yeeeaaaaah, we know...” and I’m like, no you don’t know, I really can’t breathe!

They pulled me out of the machine and my right arm fell to the side. It took a few minutes before feeling came back and I could move it. I was able to take a few sips of water before going back in for the last scan without contrast. They did the scan, pulled me out and tried to run an IV, but I was so dehydrated by this time that the techs weren’t able to it. They had to call in the “IV Team”, which is like the A-Team only for IVs…they pitied the fool (me) and got the contrast solution pumped in right away.

Back in I went and I was doing okay for the first three scans, but I couldn’t make it through the last one without being pulled out for just a few minutes so I could relax my arms and back, which was really hurting now. They put me in for the last round of Wheel of Misfortune, which was only a few minutes, but seemed like an eternity. After two hours of lying on that table my back was pretty tweaked and close to being in spasm. The table is so narrow there was no way to turn on my side and nothing to grab a hold of so I could pull myself up. It took three people to help get me up off the table. I made some definite mistakes by not eating, not drinking enough and not taking any pain meds ahead of time. If I need to have an MRI in the future I’ll ask to be shot with a tranquilizer dart.