MRI

This morning started bright an early with my MRI appointment.

This is where the magic happened

I went in, filled out a bunch of paperwork, then I got called back. I appreciated their timeliness! First was changing into a fashionable hospital gown and robe. Thank goodness for the robe because the hospital gown they gave me was missing a tie so my backside was rather drafty!

Cute huh?

After a quick wait the lady led me back into the room. Talk about space aged!!! The machine was waaay more modern looking than what I was expecting. And the room felt very "modern" too because there were large screens on the walls and ceiling with super high def images of nature. They came in handy later...

I got up on the table, she put my knee in a "cage" and then slid me in. That is a tight space. I'm not claustrophobic, but I think if they had put my head in the machine, I would have been uncomfortable. I also had headphones on to block out the noise. YEAH RIGHT! That thing is so freaking loud. It sounded like Chewbacca with a jackhammer. The deal with the MRI is that you have to stay perfectly still... well let me tell you... it's hard to stay still when, with no warning, these giant loud noises start happening. At that point I was glad the pretty picture was on the ceiling because I just focused on that in an attempt to not be bothered by the noise.

The scan took about 25 minutes. Halfway through I started having some knee pain. My knee was locked in the cage and I just am not used to having my knee super straight that long. Once again my marathon mindset came in handy... I just ignored it so that they could finish (I had a call button that I could use to stop it at any point but I thought it would be dumb to stop it just to say, hey can I just bend my knee for a second?).

Once it was over I was out of there. I didn't even get to see anything! But I should get to see the images on Friday morning. I'm really curious to see what it will look like.

Two last videos... I searched for these so I could show them to Andy when I got back, and thought you guys might be interested. The first is a quick video showing the process of an MRI for a knee - it is exactly what I experienced (minus getting to see your images at the end). In the second one you can hear some of the different sounds the machine makes. But imagine it a thousand times louder than the video. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQJRjbdS6Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS_V_OgeX-U

I tried to upload the videos but I guess I'm not that blog-savy... just follow the links!

The rest of my day is pretty blah. Working at Job #1, then going home to sit&eat. At least there are good tv shows on tonight!