No Fun In An MRI Scanner

Introduction

I am mildly claustrophobic. I don't like being in close enclosed spaces, especially if I do not have a way out. Due to my health issues and the fact that we still have a brilliant National Health Service, I am now having an MRI Scan every three to six months.

It's not the worst procedure, that for me is the endoscopy, although at my last one, they gave me colour pictures of my breakfast that I had eaten four hours before. Endoscopy gives you no escape, you can't think of something nice while a camera, however tiny, is being pushed down your throat.

So Into The MRI

I remember having one years and years ago, which was in an enclosed unit. That meant that it would have been very difficult to extract myself if the staff had forgotten about me and left me there. I pressed the panic button at least once but knew that it had to be done. I think that was taking pictures of my brain and they found evidence of a stroke. Speaking with the consultant we decided it was a result of a second bout of ITP which you can read about below, but subsequent scans showed no further signs of bleeding.

The units that I have been using in recent years are open at both ends, so there is a visible escape route.

I lie on the bed and there is a noise, a regular mechanical noise and so I imagine that it is really a techno tune. I have a lot of music based on mechanical sequences so it is easy to slip into that mindset for me.

You are moved into the scanner and you have a featureless tube surface inches away from your face. I say featureless, but there are some scraps of tape and paper on the inside of the tube and my eyes and mind try to build them into something coherent, but it doesn't quite work.

All this time I am being told

"Breathe In: Breathe Out: Hold Your Breath: Breathe Normally"

All instructions that I follow, and then my ears are assaulted by the industrial techno made by the machine that is scanning inside me. In my arm is a cannula feeding dye into my blood to enable them to make pictures of my insides and the techno continues until the next repetition of instructions.

As I lie in that featureless tube I have nothing to indicate how much time has passed, and I certainly do not know how much time there is to go.

I think the hospital staff are in another room avoiding the rays that are hitting me and controlling all the technology to get an image of what is happening to me.

And it goes on and on.

I try to feel if I can touch the end of the scanner but my arms are not long enough.

Then I get an itch on my nose that I can do nothing about because I am stuck in the MRI tube. I could press the panic button, but it's only an itch. Then I get an itch on my head.

There are two industrial MRI noises going and I am sure that I can hear a tune linked to one, but maybe that is just my imagination.

Eventually, they tell me there are four more breath tests and that will be it.

They Lie

There are more.

Then they tell me it will be five minutes.

I don't believe them but it is true, I survived the MRI Scan.

Conclusion

They roll me out, I get off the table, a little dizzy, then wait ten minutes to have the cannula removed, an dI make my way home.