MRI Queen

It's an interesting experience having a low stakes MRI. I have had two in the last two months. To me, a low stakes MRI is one that has nothing to do with the potential presence of a tumor. The MRIs on my knee and back have nothing to do with cancer, so I am not totally freaking out waiting a week for my results, just a little anxious. I really can't have a twinge or tweak in any part of my body without worrying just a little that it is cancer popping up. But I have had a bad disc in my back since my early 20s. The spinal damage always shows up on my regular CT scans as non-cancerous.

However, if I were having a back MRI three years ago, it would have been a big deal because .like a good portion of people in their 40s', I'd never had an MRI or CT scan.

Now I'm the queen of scans. And I admit I walk in to the MRI center with all the confidence this title affords. I am a gracious queen. I try to smile and joke and set the staff at ease and let them know I will be their easiest scan of the day.

First of all, I never need to change clothes. I know how to dress. I wear lounge pants with no metal and a sports bra. I have left any earrings or necklaces at home. I wear tennis shoes that can go into the machine or slip off easily if that is what the tech prefers. I try to dress warmly as they sometimes won't offer you a blanket. They may or may not offer you ear plugs. Most times you can pick a genre of music but not a particular artist. As mentioned in a previous post, don't pick country music or anything that will make you cry. An MRI tube is the loneliest place to cry.

I try to hydrate well before the appointment. Often they will want to inject contrast. This means I will need to also drink a lot of water for the rest of the day to flush the dye out of my kidney. Drinking water makes your veins easier to find for the IV. . I have small veins that move around a bit so I want them to be easy for the tech to stab. This time she had to try my right arm and get a smaller needle. She was able to get it to go, but my vein was so small it really hurt toward the end. . So I had to go through the procedure having to pee with nothing to show for it. At least it wasn't an abdominal CT, With those the dye they give you makes you feel like you have to pee. They warn you, but it's still really weird and takes a while to get used to.

I am also a master of holding still. I never fidget or adjust. I never even have an itch or compulsion to move. Part of this can be chalked up to me wanting to win the scan game, but most of it is due to learning to meditate. It has given me the ability to sit still for 45 minutes at a time without any discomfort. I can just watch my breath. I'm by no means a great meditator and am not nearly as regular in my practice as I should be, but this skill has helped me in so many ways in dealing with cancer. I meditate when waiting for the doctor when we are going to talk about bad news or a critical decision. I meditate in the waiting room when I've been waiting forever and want to lose it. Really meditation has kept me from losing it at times I would have otherwise lost it. I have still lost it plenty of times, I just prefer that it's not in public and I have a good supply of kleenexes around. I have a lot of snot. Sorry, too much information. I also prefer that my wife is there to listen and eventually stabilize me.

So in reading back through this, I notice that among the practical knowledge I've gained, I have also gained quite a bit of self-knowledge and something I can only call collectedness. I have become capable of holding myself together through intense and unreal situations. I am present in my body as it is shot through with all kinds of beams and fed chemicals that light it up or mutate its cells. This sounds kinda ordinary, like just what people do when they face a challenge, but I wasn't always like this. I used to dissociate or run screaming from any potentially traumatic situation. I really had no where to run with this one but nothing was stopping me from disassociating. This is what I am most proud of. I am proud of winning this first round of kidney cancer, but so much of that had to do with luck. I was really damn lucky. I am most proud of the fact that I was here for it, all of it. I didn't just survive it, I lived it and I came out at least a little more capable and a little more of the person I want to be. .