Tonight I went to Regional West to get some additional tests on my malformed noggin so my neurosurgeon can have a more exacting idea of what’s going on up there.
I had a marathon session of three different MRIs in a row, the last one including dye. (They do it intravenously…much tidier than, say, using a turkey baster to shoot dye up each nostril and hoping at least some of your grey matter gets covered.)
After tonight’s feature-length session I feel I can present Wenty’s MRI All-Star Tips.
- Find something to focus your attention on. I found a tiny little pinhole-sized speck on the roof of my MRI Pizza Oven, and it was always there. Thanks, old speck!
- Pick the right music. My first MRI, I picked “60’s Hits”–and the delicate instrumentation & sweet harmonies of The Mamas and the Papas and Simon and Garfunkel were just completely obliterated by the wack-a-doodle noises of the MRI. So tonight, I picked “80’s Rock”–and let me tell you something: Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” was MEANT to be synched up to MRI noises!
- Pitch yourself blog jokes while MRI is happening. In print, they may not be so hot…but in the MRI pizza oven, they will KILL!
- Try to get up ridiculously early the day of your MRI. I was up at 5am today (like always!), which means…stifle your disbelief…I actually did sleep through little bits and pieces of the MRI.
So, now the tests are done. And in 5 days I go back to my neurosurgeon to see what happens next. And to tell you the truth, I’m ambivalent. I know this Chiari thing needs to get fixed. But I also know that with the medication I’m on now, I feel really good again. I’d just like to put the Chiari in a little file cabinet drawer for 3 or 4 months, and enjoy the summer. Life doesn’t work that way.
The Chiari surgery does have potential risks; my neurosurgeon says surgery of this type could end up affecting my speech. I try not to think about that very often.
The positive in this, always, is the willingness of my co-workers (and former co-workers) to get me to these Scottsbluff appointments. I am blessed beyond words.