In the hospital in Amsterdam the day before yesterday, I had the strange experience of my first MRI. This means being inserted into a narrow tubular space inside a massive science-fiction-like machine that manages to look, in high resolution detail, at the inside of the body as if it were a fish bowl. This is done with focused magnetic impulses, apparently very powerful. It’s an amazingly noisy machine. I had imagined eery silence. Instead I felt like I was spending half an hour in a crawl space beneath a street that was being attacked by pneumatic drills. I was provided with a pair of earphones so that I might listen to what was described as "easy listening" music, but the music was audible only in those brief intervals when the pneumatic drills took a break.
The MRI scan was requested by one of my doctors several weeks ago when I was having a lot of pain where my hips are joined to my legs -- almost certainly a side effect of the anti-rejection medication I'm taking daily.
Since the MRI was scheduled, probably due to changes in medication, my legs are back to normal. I can bike again, and walk without giving it a second thought. No need of a walking stick.
The results of the scan? I may find out tomorrow when I have my next appointment at the AMC's out-patient clinic for kidney patients.
1 comment:
I agree that an MRI scanner is a noisy machine. Haha! I didn’t felt nervous before I went through the procedure because I know that I just have to lay down there and it won’t hurt me a bit. But, once I heard the noise, I started to feel nervous until I discovered that it’s just a normal part of the MRI experience. :) It went well afterwards.
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