The fun keeps on coming.

 

Sums it up. (Get a print of this here)

So the MRI.

MRIs in general don't bother me. I've had a couple over the years. I have no claustrophobia, I'm fine with whatever. The hardest part for me is keeping still. And while noise generally bothers me a lot, the MRI noise doesn't affect me at all. In fact, the noise compounds my inability to keep still because it makes me giggle when I think about it sounding like a terrible dance party.

I had noticed in my patient portal that the MRI was scheduled W/O contrast. Great! Then I got a letter from my insurance confirming that it was approved...and listing it as "with and without contrast." Hmmm...back to the patient portal. And sure enough, I had simply seen what I wanted to see.

Image contrast is not a particularly risky procedure: they give you an IV injection of a dye (in my case; there are other ways to administer it depending on the parts they are imaging) so that things show up a little differently / more clearly on the imaging. It is safe (with all procedures, there are very, very rare side effects). Contrast can be used with CT, MRI, and other imaging techniques. It's neat and really can help improve a physician's ability to diagnose (and therefore, treat). With MRI, they use gadolinium-based dye. The way all this stuff works boggles my mind and it is so frigging cool.

However, I got stuck on one potential side effect of MRI contrast: nausea.

I am a never-barfer (shout out to Arrested Development for that tangential reference). I will. not. do. it. And this freaked me the hell out.

My breast MRI was scheduled for 9 pm on a Friday night, in this case adding to the dance party mystique. (Only in my old age would I consider 9 pm an acceptable time for a dance party, sure, but whatever.) I was pleased when they called and offered to have me come in an hour earlier. 

Once there, as with everything so far, it was super efficient. The tech pulled me in and got me ready before I'd even gotten my book out. I asked about any medication to keep me from getting sick, and they don't have it there. I panicked. And this was just the beginning.

Not sure how many people reading this have ever had a breast MRI, but it can be best described as lying on a platform, all your weight on your sternum with the girls hanging down through two glory holes:

(this is not me. I wore a hairnet. and went in face-first.)

For about 30 minutes. I am not sure how to explain how hard it is to breathe in this position. And the tech says, "breathe normally!"  Yeah, right.

They did a lot of imaging. This time, though, instead of hearing the dance party, the magnets deformed and bounced and gave me frog calls. It was actually quite nice, particularly since at one point I realized my shoulders were so incredibly tense I couldn't relax at all. Once I started hearing frog calls, though, it was a little better. I was suddenly back at one of my ponds in Belize with the little dudes* around me going nuts. That was somewhat soothing.

Then came the contrast. I kind of wished she wouldn't warn me. I had my thumb poised over the panic button while I thought about how to deal with the fact that I had an IV in and where I'd spew if I had to because I couldn't just run out to the toilet with the line in my arm.

I got a little bit warm. I focused on the frog calls. More frog calls. Pause. My hand was really cold. Focused on my friend Laura (who has been one of my biggest supports through this) telling me that I wouldn't get sick from this. And then...we were done. 

And I was home by like 8:35.

Anna asked if I'd have the results before my surgical follow up but I have no idea. Radiologists are a different breed and I have zero idea how to understand what these images say. I may get a report but I suspect that even that will be a bit obtuse for my understanding. I have the luxury of understanding a lot of jargon, but not that stuff...so now, we wait.

*Yes dudes. Only the male frogs call.