This week’s Photo Challenge turned out to be more of a challenge than I realized, since most of my photography takes place outdoors.
Sidelined from my regular running routine, the doctors are determined to get to the bottom of things. So the other day they put me very much INSIDE this contraption for an MRI.
I had to see it from its inside in order for it to see me from my inside. A fair exchange, provided I don’t come out glowing:
BONUS: I learned how to stifle a sneeze without moving a muscle.Too bad my health insurance won’t give me extra credit for that non-maneuver!
Twenty minutes of stillness, inside, followed by two excruciating injections deep inside, followed by another twenty minutes, inside.
It felt like this was about as inside as inside gets.
I got a diagnosis with a sixteen-letter word out of the deal. I pray the bill isn’t as many digits long.
Now, please get me back OUTSIDE and running on the beach again.
Thanks, God, for the journey…
Sorry to hear about the injury…hope for a speedy recovery. Good interpretation of the challenge…unfortunate that you had the occasion to photograph it.
Thank you, Pastor Spindler. As long as I was praying, I was able to perceive it as more of a fearless adventure. And He saw me through just fine…
~~ssm
Hope your diagnosis is curable quickly! Agree MrI is total torture, but so valuable
Long road they tell me, but they also said they expect me to run again. So I’m just thinking of it like a stationary marathon 😀 Thanks, Ms. Tina!
Great photo of the MRI machine. It looks more up-to-date than the ones I’ve been inside. I noticed you didn’t mention the “jack-hammer sound” one usually must endure during the test. Was yours quiet?
I hope your insides are going to be ok. Wishing you well.
They gave me headphones and gave me my choice what to listen to, but even so, it did not drown out the intermittent jackhammer and whirring rackets that ultimately challenged their missive to me to remain still. The sound factor was jarring and, frankly, scary, even with my favorite music trying to vie for my attention through the headphones.
Thank you so much, Miki – even though it looked more modern, they haven’t figured out how to keep it quiet! I’m sure I’ll be okay eventually, and in the meantime, I simply adapt.
I hope your MRIs have yielded good results or have led to positive resolution? What were yours like?
~~ssm
I’ve endured the MRI test twice. Once for a head injury and the other for hand trauma. As you can probably imagine, the sounds of the MRI seemed deafening when I was tested while I had brain trauma. I usually have lots of patience but that experience tried my nerves! I felt like crying but I got through it.
Years later, when I was told I needed an MRI for my hand injury, I figured I’d just stick my hand in the tunnel so no worries about noise…WRONG! They had me lay down on my back in a Superman position (one arm was by my side though) and they stuck me in head first! Aaaahhh! So there I was enduring the jackhammers again. I wanted out of there so bad…I felt like running out of the exam room. Good thing I stayed though. It turned out there was a torn ligament in my hand. The previous test of my brain turned out ok.
I sure hope someone is inventing a quiet MRI.
Bless you for your superhero efforts in enduring two like that! Apparently General Electric has come up with a solution: http://www.medgadget.com/2013/09/ges-silent-scan-technology-now-available-for-quiet-mri-scans.html
But don’t click on the link if the jackhammer sound might cause you flashbacks, although it only lasts a few seconds before they demonstrate the new, quieter version. Glad both your tests yielded helpful results!
~~ssm
Thank you the for the information on the new quiet MRI scanners! I mustered up courage to watch the video. No flashbacks because it only included the loud beeping, not the jackhammer sound. I’m so glad that GE invented a quiet scanner. Hopefully, neither one of us will need another but if we do, by then, we won’t have to endure “construction site” sounds.
You’re so welcome! I hope the quiet ones become commonplace very soon.
~~ssm
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Bonjour Mme S S Muse
Spent quite a bit of time in these things – Love your blog by the way so much to enjoy
Thanks
Dan
Merci beaucoup, M. Dan. Je suis si contente que vous avez récupéré. J’espère que vous avez terminé avec MRIs. Puisque vous êtes dans le sud ouest de France, s’il vous plaît donner mes salutations à Pau et Bordeaux, où est ma famille … et était. Je vous propose un toast à vos blogs …
~~Mme SS Muse
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I couldn’t get into a tanning bed because I’m claustrophobic and feel for anyone who doesn’t like confined spaces.
I send you positive vibes SSM.
Yes, I’ ve heard that MRIs are a veritable torture chamber for claustraphobics. It was like a sensory deprivation chamber except for the cacophony, and with a shade of 50 Shades of Grey, the way he bound my ankles. Thank you, Ms. Tess; may you never be subjected to that!
–ssm
Sorry you had to experience MRI.
That is one impressive looking machine. Kind of funny how the person off on the side sort of looks like a woman in a wedding dress. Sounds like a terrible experience, though. 😦 I hope you’re alright!
Interesting perspective of the wedding dress – it was a male tech holding my sheet waiting for me to finish shooting from the “safe zone,” beyond which my phone would have been erased had I stepped one inch farther.
Nice guy, too – a Navy brat from San Diego whose dad told him he would relocate anywhere so long as it was east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon line, so they shipped him to Pensacola.
It’s an ongoing process, and thank you so much, Ms. Betsy.
CT scan is one magnificent machine to find what’s inside. Perfect!
Thanks, Seeker. It was loud, too, despite my favorite music in the headphones during the procedure.
~~ssm
Normally they provide ear plugs. I can just imagine the whirl whirl whirl thud thud thud.
PS. I hope you do get back on your feet soon and your situation is manageable. I just took my last set of tests before my procedure. The nurses found $2200 and quickly removed it from me, calling it something like a ‘deductible’. If I wasn’t sick to my stomach went I went there I sure was when I left! Best wishes to you. You’ll be in my thoughts.
God machine, indeed – brings the darkness within, to light.
Deductibles, de-schmucktibles – I think they just might be the health care industry’s covert method of perpetuating more business by making us sicker, as you point out.
Thank you, 3D, for your well-wishes, and I wish you even more. Mine is a drop in the bucket compared to what you’re enduring. I keep you and your family in my prayers.
~~ssm
Its an amazing machine, and you are right, I felt naked inside it too. Its sees everything. It knows everything. Nothing is hidden. It knows who we are better than we do. Maybe we should call it the God machine. 🙂