We weren't sure that this morning's procedure was going to happen on time. I got a call yesterday on the way to Costco saying that my prior authorization for the MRI hadn't gotten submitted in time, and I could self-pay or reschedule. They had talked to my doctor before calling me, so I suggested the third option was to give Tricare overnight to process my referral, and decide what to do before it was time to head to the hospital. The nice lady who called yesterday woke me this morning to let me know it would be paid for, and I could go ahead and come in.
I didn't sleep well last night. Frankly I was not looking forward to lying face down in an MRI machine. It wasn't for claustrophobia. I don't mind that so much. It was the position. The arthritis in my low back has made it impossible for me to arch backwards at all, whether I'm lying down or standing up. They did what they could to make this comfortable, but it wasn't enough. I was sore for several hours from it. For a breast MRI, you lie on a wedge from knees to ribs, your breasts dangle into a box with two windows on top, and your face is in a cradle like on a massage table. They put a pillow under the ankles too, but that's just a minor comfort that doesn't offset the rest.
Feet go in the machine first, so if anyone were to panic in the tight space, I suppose that would help alleviate it. You really can't see the machine behind you, and there is oxygen piped in below the face cradle to keep you from overheating. This particular machine was brand new, having been installed last fall. I don't know whether older machines have the exact same amenities.
I was offered my choice of Pandora stations to listen to during the procedure, and so naturally I requested Marillion. There was some sort of flamenco music playing when they first put headphones on me, and as they moved the bed back into the tube, it switched to Heart of Lothian. This was from side two of Misplaced Childhood, the album I used to listen to in its entirety every time my stomach pain woke me up in the middle of the night in college. It was right about the point when this song started that I was trained to relax my abdominal muscles and start the process of falling back asleep. How ironic that as something physically challenging was kicking off, this was the music I was offered. I was quite pleased and grateful for it.
They gave me a sticker with a bubble of vitamin E to place on the side of my breast, to highlight the spot that has never been in a mammogram machine nor wanded by the ultrasound. Maybe -- just maybe -- we will now know what it was that has been causing pain there for two years.
While I was in the radiology waiting room, a friend of mine from Charleston sent me some photos as a gift. She knows how I feel about nature pictures, and how excited I get when spring starts opening up blossoms. She now lives in the northeast, and the trees were just beginning to open there. We haven't gotten any yet. She offered me these pictures and let me know she was thinking of me while I'm going through this. It was a lovely gesture, and it helped me get through the yucky test this morning.
They say now that I've been diagnosed with cancer, I can expect to have follow up imaging pretty much forever. I'll have a yearly mammogram and a yearly MRI, offset by six months. There are much more enjoyable things I'd rather do with a couple of hours of my time, but if it keeps cancer from coming back once I kick it out of my life, I'll do it.
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