I went for the MRI scan today. It was at the local diagnostic centre again, the same place I went for the CT scan last week. I thought I was all organised for the MRI. I had a short sleeved top on ready for the cannula, I didn't wear any make up or jewellery as instructed, and I didn't have any metal trim on my clothes. What I hadn't considered were the metal hooks in my bra. So I had to be allocated a locker to store my bra in. It was an enormous locker, my bra looked very silly sitting in there on it's own. Then I had to set a security passcode for the door.
Eventually after all that I made it to the MRI room where they put in the cannula and tested it. Then it was time to go into the scanner. I've never had an MRI before, all I knew was that I'd have to lie very still and that it's noisy. What I didn't realise was how long it was going to take. They put headphones on me and a helmet. I was offered music, I said yes please, and they asked if I had any requests. I was tempted to ask if they had any Bay City Rollers, but I suspected the answer would be no, so I let them choose. It was so noisy though that I could hardly hear it anyway.
There was a film playing in the helmet which was nice. It started off with a visit to what I presume was a Japanese garden. There were lots of pretty cherry blossom trees and pagodas. Then we moved onto footage of pandas. That cheered me up immensely. I love pandas.
I think there were about 10 scans in all. 6 without contrast and 4 with. Some were very quick, the longest was 5 minutes, the rest were probably 3 or 4 minutes each. A recorded message told me how long each one would be. I think in all I was about 40 minutes in the scanner.
They said I'd been very good. I had my cannula removed and had a little rest. Then it was back to the locker to retrieve my bra. Fortunately I had remembered the code for the door!
