MRI

No wonder the MRI questionaire included questions like "Are you claustrophobic?".

I have a compression fracture on one of my thorasic vertebraes. It's T10 for you medical types; it is just under my bra-line for us non-medical types. The xray showed the fracture but it does not show if any blood vessels or tissue are stuck in the fracture. My doctor ordered an MRI of the T10. The first try was on a mobile MRI machine. It is slightly smaller than the ones I have seen at big hospitals. It was like a little tunnel. My right foot had an MRI in September. But only my foot went into the machine so it didn't scare me. I noticed that it was noisy but they gave me ear plugs to wear.

But the MRI on my spine required me to go head first into that little tunnel. My arms scraped against the sides and I just could not catch my breath. I don't think I paniced. I just told the tech that it was too uncomfortable. Sure enough, both arms were bruised from scraping the sides of the tunnel.

So they found an "open" MRI machine just up the road at a medical clinic. That was shaped like a small "c". I laid flat and they put a cage-like thing over my midsection and slid me sideways into the MRI. I opened my eyes and could not tell how close my head was to the top of the MRI. I thought, I have to get this done or they will not fix my compression fracture. So I just started praying. I prayed for everybody I know and some people I don't know. I just kept up this silent dialog with the Lord for 35 minutes until it was done. The MRI confirmed that it was a bad fracture but no complications with tissue. OK, I'm ready for surgery.