stosb

wearer of programming socks

  • she/her

mid 20s | bisexual | programmer | european


profile pic: a picrew by Shirazu Yomi
picrew.me/en/image_maker/207297
i use arch btw
xenia the linux fox -> 🦊🏳️‍⚧️
the moon
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knutaf
@knutaf

i had an MRI the other day, for the first time. i've been lucky enough until now not to have needed one, but i've been having wrist pain for a while, and it's finally gotten to the point where it made sense to get more diagnostics. it was a weird and interesting experience, so i thought i'd write about it before i forget forever

this was a contrast MRI (probably there are other kinds?) so it was a two-part procedure. first part was getting an injection of contrast into the wrist

the contrast

the person takes me to an xray room and puts me on a table, lying down. my arm is not immobilized, but just resting on a washcloth or something. they have me just lie still while they aim the xray at my arm. i can see a monitor to my right where they keep showing xrays they're taking. they take like 30 xrays overall through the injection procedure

they spend quite a lot of time making marks on my hand and basically getting the aim right. they need to get this contrast into the right area in my wrist or else it won't highlight the areas they're interested in.

finally they spray the area with this cold spray, probably the same stuff they spray on soccer players to get em back into the game asap. the area goes numb for a sec, and then she sticks a needle in. i can see the needle in the subsequent xray pictures. they put it in and didn't take it back out

i feel that they injected something in there. later i realized the first injection was probably a local anesthetic, because that needle stayed in for like a whole 15 minutes straight, and i'm sure i would have felt it more for that long. i didn't actually look at the needle the whole time, just kept seeing it on the xray. that was weird

they explained that they had to put the contrast in very slowly, something like 0.2mL at a time, so it took forever to get it in. finally she took the needle back out and massaged the area to spread it around or something

they relatively quickly ushered me over to the MRI area

MRI prep

next part, i had to change out of my clothes into a gown. i got to keep my underwear on, but from what they were saying, it seems like it would have been safer to swap those too. the MRI will activate any metal that goes in there and basically burn you with it. if your clothes unluckily have metallic fibers of some kind, that counts. if you have a pacemaker or internal shunts or pins or whatever, that's also no good. luckily i don't

the MRI

the machine is a long tube. they had me lie on my stomach with a pillow under my head. they put big clunky earmuffs on me. they made me raise my target arm above my head, like i was reaching for something. this pose felt fine at first, but wait for it...

they said it was going to be about 30 minutes in the machine and gave me a little thing to squeeze in my other hand if i had an emergency and needed out

now here are the problems:

  1. the pose stopped being very comfortable after a bit
  2. the headphones were really uncomfortable. if i'd had earplugs it would have been much better
  3. you can't move

you have to stay still so they can get good images. for me that means i don't think i can fall asleep, cause my body twitches and stuff. so i spent the entire time in this somewhat delirious state in the liminal space between sleep and wake. it's like... have you ever driven somewhere and gotten really drowsy, but you know you have to fight to stay awake? yeah, like that

to make matters weirder, the machine is loud as hell. that's why they give the ear protection. it's not only loud but it makes strange, rhythmic noises:

  • WOOM WOOM WOOM
  • CLUNK CHUG CLUNK CHUG
  • WEEEEEEEEE WEEEEEEEEE
  • OO EE OO EE OO EE
  • TAKATAKATAKATAKA
  • and like 10 other varieties

so i'm there, lying uncomfortably and stiffly, trying to stay immobile, probably able to fall asleep except i'm fighting against sleep, while an unpredictable, yet repetitious parade of cacophany assaults my ears. it was a combination of senses like nothing i've ever experienced

how long really passed in that machine? it could have been 5 minutes. it could have been 5 hours. to my senses, it was utterly stationed outside of time

and then i grabbed a reuben from rainbow cafe in auburn on the way home


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