Mom with MS: Solitary Tube Time

Today was scheduled to be a 2.5 hour MRI of my thorasic and cervical spine as well as my brain. It was the longest MRI I have had scheduled yet in the 10 years since my 'MRI getting' days began in October of 1999. I'm a mom with two lovely girls, one who is 4 and one who is about 10 months, and so of course the first step is childcare. I really think that aside from the obvious symptom problems one of the hardest parts of being a mom with MS is getting childcare for all the appointments!! Sure the kids can handle a doctors visit every now and then, but mom in a tube for 2.5 hours? It would be SUCH an over simplification to say that the kids would get a little freaked out. Forget that mom can't talk (or even swallow) for part of the procedure, they would likely think the machine ate mom!!

Fortunately I'm one of the lucky moms who has a lovely helpful mother in law who helped me out this time, my older daughter was in school, and she took my younger booger faced girl for a few hours while I had my tube time.

Once I arrived of course I had to fill out all those forms (just like I filled out a hundred times before) including one that is a medical disclaimer about the 'contrast' infusion I would be getting and had to sign that I acknowledged obtaining the information that some of it would be passed through my breastmilk to my baby, 'just a tiny bit' though.

As a mom the amount of research that has gone on around the safety of all of these procedures in relation to my left over eggs, my breastmilk to feed my baby, and so forth is either missing or severely lacking. Fortunately there has been some research done by Dr. Hale who isn't scared to disclose to us nursing moms, though finding it requires some digging so being in touch with a local LLL leader is essential since they know how to find this kind of information.

Back to the MRI though, ironically, I remember vaguely suggestion to my husband (or trying to convince myself) that I'd be able to relax and 'meditate' during the MRI, this was a joke!! I think the longest 'segment' of the hour an a half or so (I'll explain later) was 6 minutes during which I had to hold extremely still and the noises are constantly changing, loud, and to say the least distracting. It was only my third time getting any spinal MRI's, and I found them much louder, so maybe I wasn't totally off, I could relax I think with a brain MRI though they aren't a walk in the park.

About the noises, I decided to just be in the moment while I was in the tube and focus on the different noises. One of them, sounded like it was saying "Booty, Booty, Booty, Booty," over and over again, then it would turn into "Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla" and a jackhammer-like "BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG" or a high pitched "Woi, Woi, Woi, Woi," I think the other main one, at least that I remember, was just like a knock on a door, if you imagine a quick three knocks, it was at that speed, but with many many more knocks. So this would happen over, and over, and over again, for anywhere from 30 seconds to six minutes over an hour and a half long period of time.

Inside the tube, I had the hardest time with the scans for the cervical part of my spine, which required that I do my best to not swallow during each of those small periods of time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a compulsive swallower, at least not that I'm aware of, but if I'm consciously thinking about not swallowing it is very difficult to not swallow. I tried to focus on the two bands of light that look like they are made of long thin plastic floss woven together. I also had a hard time not interlocking my fingers, she said it was okay that I had on rings though if I interlocked them I would get a kind of electric current going through my fingers. I was tempted to say I wouldn't mind since my body feels like that anyway but I kept them apart instead.

Between the "C" and "T" part of my spine I tried to move my hands a bit and kind of realized what a narrow tube it was too. I can absolutely understand how someone could have a really hard time getting and staying in there. I'm not big but I'm definitely not tiny either and I can't even imagine how stressful it might be to have parts of my body actually being squeezed by the tube. Seems like it would feel like I was getting stuck! I didn't think about that part for very long though, so no biggie for me this time, I'll work out/try and chase my kids some more instead!

Once the brain part of the scan got started, it all got much more relaxing, because I finally asked for a blanket (I was a little chilly) and also to keep my head still they have this kind of cage head holding thing with pillows shoved in by my ears to keep my head still and it actually made it a lot easier to relax my head. She also put some elbow rests which kept my arms more relaxed rather than tired from trying to keep them balanced on my stomach.

Scheduling was something that I was grateful for, I had expected to be in the tube for 2.5 hours, but I was lucky in that the time allotted was meant to make up for any complication that might arise. For instance if a person requires getting out between scans (claustrophobic?), or if they move and it has to be done over again, or any other things that might happen. As a 'seasoned' MRI getter I didn't have any of these slowing complications, so it all worked out really well.

One request I'm going to make, or suggestion you could call it is that the location that I went to for my MRI take some notes from NYU outpatient MRI in NYC, because they have headphones that us patients can wear to not have to listen to those loud loud noises. Ear plugs are great and all but the noise is still really really loud and far from pleasant. I might be able to meditate if I was listening to a loud babbling brook or mozart maybe, then I could just listen to KUOW/NPR too, that's something I like to do even if it isn't relaxing.

Should be at least another six months now, I glanced at the CD and there was a lot of spots that looked new to me unfortunately, we will see what the doc says later this week. I'm planning on starting my daily injections of medicine soon, something I haven't missed, it seems like it is time.