The Big White Tube

Today I had an MRI on my knee. If you saw my twitter messages, you know I was a little concerned. I was fine until this morning and all of the sudden I was worried about that stupid big white tube. Once I got to the hospital, I thought of leaving and not getting it done. No one would know. Surely I could lie and cover my butt. Then I thought of the pain I have been in and decided to stick it out.

I sat in the Radiology waiting room and a thought occurred to me. Will they need to use needles? When I was told that it is possible (DamamaT), I started to think the pain wasn't that bad and that I could lie and cover my butt quite well, thank you very much. Alas, I stayed.

There were no needles involved (thanks for the prayers DamamaT)! I want you to know how horrible it is to lay in the tube though bloggyworld. It sucked. Big time. I had headphones to try to drown out the LOUD machine, but there was no music so it just muffled it a bit. I was laying flat on my back (I also have back problems) and my knee was pushed down and strapped that way. Oh. My. God. I seriously thought I would die. I think I spent 5 hours laying like that (more like 30 minutes or so). Not moving.

Do you know how impossible it is to lay perfectly still when you are told that is all you have to do? I had involuntary muscle spasms. My nose itched. My head was hurting from my pony tail. Oh, and if anyone saw the episode of ER not too long ago where they turned on the machine and the patient was sucked to the machine by the magnet because they forgot to remove the metal backboard, you will understand that I was in fear of my tongue being ripped out of my mouth by the magnet. You see, I have a piercing and I couldn't remember if the thing was metal or not. I attempted to remove it, but the MRI lady said it would be fine. Then she said "if it starts to bother you, just let us know". Not a smart thing to say to a nutty person. I layed there waiting for my tongue to be ripped out of my mouth the whole time. Every time that machine started a new round or whatever it is it does, I would think "Uh oh, it's gonna happen this time". It never did. I still have a tongue in my mouth. Woot!

They also made the mistake of giving me a CD with the images on it. This was promptly inserted into my computer where I scrutinized every image and then googled normal knee MRIs. My knee does not look like those knees. I am no doctor, but I think I may have a problem there. I called the doctor to figure out how it is I am to find out what my problem is (HUSH) and was told my doctor is on emergency leave. Super. I am scheduled with another doctor tomorrow morning though. I am thrilled. I will know what is going to happen before I head home.

And speaking of heading home, we leave Saturday. Unless I can convince the husband to sneak out of here tomorrow. The military has this thing about leave and days and blah blah blah. Either way, this will probably be my last post before leaving. I haven't packed a thing. I also have not wrapped everything. Blah.