From the archives [ Originally published September 9th 2014 ] Please bear with me as I migrate these old posts from the now defunct Google Blogger
So, recently I had an MRI Scan on my lumbar spine. This is my 3rd such scan and I have an irrational fear of the things!
For anyone who doesn’t know, an MRI scanner is a machine where the patient lies within the noisy Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the diagnostic imaging device that uses huge magnets that whirl around a person’s body as they lay within the machine. The MRI offers a precise image of any part or internal organ, tissues & skeleton. But it is recognised that it is an ordeal for many people, some of whom panic at being trapped inside the monstrous machine. It is precisely that ‘Panic’ which is my own fear, and I do feel this to be irrational and quite frankly embarrassing.
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My first scan was in 2000, Blackheath, London at a private hospital. I didn’t like that one at all. MRI scans are not painful, there is no physical discomfort at all. It is all psychological. You are placed onto a narrow bed which is at the opening to the entrance of a tube. To me it resembles the torpedo tube of those old WWII submarine films where the torpedo is loaded onto ‘a bed’ at the opening of a long tube!
So you lie down with your head closest to the tube opening, your head is supported in a ‘U’ shaped block and from that moment you cannot move your head from side-to-side. Today I was handed soft ear plugs to place in each ear, I have previously been handed headphone type ear defenders. You are also handed a button to hold in one hand in case of emergency, however what that emergency might be I was not advised, though i strongly suspect ‘claustrophobic panic’ is the most common!
The narrow bed is then mechanically raised to align with the torpedo tube opening. On this most recent MRI I was asked to close my eyes while I was ‘positioned’. Now, this was good advice, and on my previous two spinal MRI scans I was not given this advice. Because you see (this is where the ‘irrational fear’ part comes in). When you are being ‘positioned’ you are being mechanically slid into the tube. In the case of my 3 lumbar spine MRI’s all the way in! I guess for other parts of the body maybe you don’t go so far inside the tube.
Maybe? But I digress, it is this moving into the tube and seeing your available space disappear which is in my case the most difficult to deal with. Despite having my hands across my chest & flat down I felt my elbows being pushed even closer to my sides by the walls of the tube. As I opened my eyes the top of the tube was less than a wedding fingers distance from my nose. It is not dark but dim. It was cool but started to get warm. There was a noticeable jet of cool air felt on the way in but now that was absent.
OK, so on MRI #1 in 2000 I didn’t panic but didn’t like the feeling of claustrophobia at all.
On MRI #2 in 2013 at this stage in the proceedings I wanted to scream like a little girl and say “get me out of here”! I’d never been so close to a full on screaming panic attack! So, why the fuss? It’s just lying in a small dim tube having been mechanically inserted on a narrow bed. What’s not to like?
Well, I’m probably your classic ‘Over-thinker’. I am also an engineer and put those together and you get a torrent of imagined but maybe possible things that might go wrong. Being an engineer and a realist the first thing that comes to mind is a power cut. Now there might be some amazing back up system so efficient that I wouldn’t even know anything had gone wrong. But if not then in my imagined over thought scenario everything would go dark. The fresh air that I believe is being pumped into the tube would stop. Any cooling of the huge magnet in which I am now lying might fail, so it would get hotter. Does the bed on which I am lying have a manual override? Can it be pulled out by hand by the scanner people just outside or is it dependent upon machinery & geared to a now useless & immovable motor somewhere? How could I get out? There is absolutely no room to use my arms, hands legs to try and propel myself out, especially if the mechanical bed is jammed by its gearing.
So that little scenario above is what nearly got the better of me last time. Also of course, there is the little matter of this amazing machine finding something really awful growing inside me that is the real cause of the pain!
This time I was determined to ‘Man Up’ and just deal with it! And I did. Thankfully, and I think it was down to Meditation. One thing I have been reading up on since MRI #2 and this latest one is meditation. I’ve dabbled with the subject before having used it myself, by accident in 2000, after major spinal surgery. I say accident because at that point I had no idea what meditation was, but in awful pain despite being at my maximum dose of pumped intravenous morphine, I needed to find another way of coping. And i did, somehow, and i now believe i used a form of meditation as a coping mechanism, which thankfully worked. That is another whole story that I may well elaborate on at some time.
Anyway, having read a little on meditation since then, it was my intention this time, during MRI #3 to attempt to remove myself from the actual experience and take myself somewhere else, somewhere more pleasant, natural and preferable. It worked for me. Despite being in that confined, dim, hot and very noisy small space for 45 minutes or so it was no ordeal at all. My body was there but my mind was with my family, my kids particularly, seeing their faces & smiles, hearing their laughter and feeling their hugs. It was surprisingly easy to do. I intend to develop my meditation skills further, I am no expert but what I do know and what I have achieved so far is thanks to a book by Matthieu Ricard, it’s called ‘Happiness , a guide to developing life’s most important skill‘. And I go back to it often, it is always to hand. There are exercises in meditation, it is great, I think.
So, despite the noise, the keeping still for ages, the claustrophobia, I was simply not there, in fact when the loud hammer like banging stopped for the last time I was almost disappointed at the jerk as the electric bed started to remove me from the ‘tube’. I was in such a nice place. I have also used this when dealing with Chronic Pain, and I continue to work on that.
Part of my meditation during MRI #3 was just to marvel at the wonderful engineering and technology which was mapping my spine with pinpoint accuracy, a truly amazing machine that science has given us and our children if ever they should need it.
Thank you for reading
Originally Published on
9/13/14 11:23 AM
Baffled Ape 