The actual MRI process doesn't bother me at all. They lie you down on a bench, put a foam wedge under your knees so it's comfortable lying on your back, cover you with a blanket, give you earplugs, put foam pieces next to your head so you're less likely to move and then stick this cage thing over your head to get front images.
BTW this is not me
You also get a squeeze-thingy so if you start to freak out, they can stop the machine right away. Then they slide you in and the weird, loud, jack-hammer noises start, but they're rhythmic and done in a series. So you have a series of crazy noises going for a few minutes, then silence, then a new set of crazy noises. And it's all muffled because of the earplugs. After 30 minutes or so, if you're getting the contrast, they slide you back out and inject it. The first time it was just with a needle, this second time they had put in an IV lock beforehand. Then they slide you back in immediately for 15ish minutes more.
Supposedly you can sometimes get headphones to listen to music (local radio stations most likely), but that wasn't an option for me because of the types of images they were getting. But that was fine with me. I'm not clausterphobic, I keep my eyes closed and let myself drift into a meditative state. Not quite asleep, not quite awake and tucked into this little cocoon. Have you ever been tanning? It's like that, except not warm. Letting myself drift like this also helped make the crazy noises not be so annoying, they actually helped me drift a little further.
So the during is fine (as much as it can be), it's the after that gets me. Both times they did a contrast, which is where they inject Gadolinium, a liquid rare-earth metal, into you which helps illuminate the veins in your head and is especially good for checking out tumors. Pretty cool and pretty useful, but man, it makes me feel weird. The first time, I shook it off pretty quickly. Stopped off at Starbucks, drank my coffee in the car, bam, fine. A little bruising at the injection site even though the needle went in easily, but overall not bad. This last time, notsomuch. My mom and sister went with me so Alison drove us to Cafe Deluxe for an early dinner. Yummy food and lots & lots & lots of water helped, but I was still happy to let Alison drive the rest of the way home. Nothing specific, I just felt off. And my left arm (the one they used to insert the metal) definitely felt different from my right for the rest of the day. But then I was also feeling off on Thanksgiving and my headaches had come back so I think my greater reaction to the contrast was because I was already off-kilter. And after a good night's sleep, I woke up feeling myself again.
Apparently these are all fairly common reactions - dizziness, the injection arm feeling odd or even sore, bruises at injection site, headaches. Usually it's all fairly mild and goes away within a few hours, like mine did. Overall it's a pretty non-scary procedure.
On to the pictures. I'm showing the side view and the front view. This first set is from my MRI on October 27th.
And this second set is from the one last week, November 25th.
Since this one was done at Georgetown, where my doctor is, I had to specifically ask for a CD of the images. I had also downloaded software that allowed me to see the images - without it, they end up being teeny tiny little things, but with it they become normal sized and easily viewable and you can even export mpegs.
I haven't heard from my doctor yet, but as far as I can tell, they're identical. Secretly, I was hoping that the first MRI was faulty and that the tumor would either have disappeared (maybe they switched my files! even though I was the only person there that morning and they gave me the CD immediately!) or was really smaller than what was originally shown. But hey, next best thing is that it hasn't grown.
And you wanna see why contrast is good? Here's my first MRI, pre-contrast:
And here's the same angle, post-contrast (same picture as above):
Pretty cool, huh? Makes all the minor side effects worth it.
I also like that I can export the files as quicktimes. Here's one from October that shows the tumor from the top - or actually, the bottom. In the video, the tumor will appear in the bottom right, but it's on the left side of my head (note: you will see my eyeballs. It's only for a fraction of a second, but can be a little freaky the first time you see it)
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