Yesterday morning, I had my first MRI scan of my life. It was probably the longest 30 mins of my life.
As you know, I have been suffering from chronic back pain since I'd sprained it last October. Pilates helps but I am still unable to do anything very strenuous or high impact. So the 1.5 hour jet ski ride 2 weeks ago did it again. I went to the loo in the middle of the night and guess what? i felt something give way in my back again. This time thankfully was less severe than the last when I totally felt paralyzed. Hao-e was snoring away as usual, so I staggered to find my trusty bengay cream, smeared it all over my back, struggled back to bed and did Pilates warm up exercises. It was a long fretful night and I spent the rest of the weekend lying down with a heat pack plastered to my back.
This time I decided to go to my GP since the sports medicine specialist I was seeing was a) very expensive; and b) didn't seem to help except prescribe physio appointments. I wanted a referral to see a chiropractor since I'd heard many good things from those around me, but the GP informed that chiropractors aren't medically trained doctors?! I had initially thought they were specialists, she said no, they don't actually go to med school, they go to chiropractic school. So they're more like the tui-na sinsehs lah! She obviously didn't think too highly of their skills and advised me to go back to Dr. Carter the sports medicine specialist who is a medically trained doctor, blah blah. She also sent me to do a MRI scan on my lumbar and sacrum area which is the topic of today's post.
Have you had an MRI done before?
It was a first for me. When I was strapped into that narrow 'tray' and covered with a blanket, I felt like he was pushing me into a coffin, or one of those things in the morgue. The machines was very noisy too, it sounded very much like I'm in the middle of a war film, with the machine guns shooting at me. I was panicking because there didn't seem to be an emergency button I could press to get his attention. The door slammed and I was really flustered. No one can hear me now! And I cannot move or else I'll prolong the process!! I don't actually have claustrophobia but I felt claustrophobic for those first 30 seconds. I had to close my eyes and concentrate on the song, singing along to the tune to try to forget where i was, what i was doing. i was telling myself, 30mins equals 7-8 songs. I was counting the number of songs that had been played! 1...2...3... i didn't recognize the songs but they were a Godsend. By the 6th song, I opened my eyes to look around. The machine was about 10cm away from from my face. There were no scratch marks anywhere. must be a good thing right? positive thoughts. My back was starting to ache a little and I had a headache either from the radiation or the noise, or maybe both. I wiggled my toes and turned my head a little as my hair elastic was cutting off blood supply to the left side of my skull. seriously. every movement was teensy. Finally we were on the 8th song. It must have been more than 30 mins right? Come on! the noise stopped but still the technician didn't roll me out of the machine. There were 2 slits on the sides of the machine so I could peak out from my horizontal space vessel. Where's that man?? His voice boomed out of the speakers in the machine, "hold it there, just give me another minute". Yay! I was finally free!
I was a much happier person walking out of the clinic. You can bet on that.
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