It was horrible...

Yeah, MRIs suck ass. Especially dye MRIs. Yeah, Matt, it was a dye MRI. Oh, the horror.

I started freaking out about having to go have the test around 11am yesterday morning. I was sitting at work, and I guess the gravity of the situation finally hit me. We're talking about my brain here. My brain is very dear to me; I like it just the way it is. I don't want anyone poking and prodding and lurking in that vicinity. It's my brain, MINE!

I called Chris and talked to him for awhile, and I let him know what was going on with me. We try to keep each other in the loop. We quickly moved away from the topic of the MRI to other things: friends, family, the upcoming picnic, etc. Leave it to Chris to completely steer us off the subject at hand; I think that's why I called him. I knew he'd get my mind off it for awhile, and he's always there to listen (now that we're not married anymore). And he knows me so well that I hardly have to say anything and he still knows exactly what I'm thinking.

I left work at 2:30pm, suddenly wishing I had taken Harry up on the offer to leave work and come with me. I figured he'd just have to do a lot of waiting, and I didn't want him to have to go through that. Waiting for someone at the hospital can be completely nerve-wracking. I thought he'd be better off at work; it would keep his mind occupied so he wouldn't have to think about what was going on with me.

Since when the hell am I such a martyr, I ask you?

I figured it was too late to call him and ask him to come down once I got to the hospital. Dude, was I wrong.

I was supposed to be there at 2:45pm to register (which I was), and my appointment was for 3:15pm. Needless to say, I didn't get get into the MRI room until after 4pm. The woman at the hospital registration desk was a little slow, and then the woman at the MRI reception desk neglected to tell the MRI technician that I was even there. She just happened to wander into the waiting room and noticed me there.

So I get in there, she shows me the machine. What I thought would be a little "tunnel" is really just a tube. Just so ya all know, I'm very claustophobic. Yeah.

So she has my lay down and gets me all settled with my headset, my panic button, and the little contraption that goes over your head with the little mirror so you can see the tech in her booth at all times (they think of everything), and proceeds to tell me that 3/4 of the way through the test, she's going to be taking me out of the machine and injecting me with dye.

Red alert! Red alert! Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

She saw the look on my face and says, "OK, and she doesn't like that part."

I explained my needle phobia and about almost passing out the week before and my difficult veins, etc. I told her my left arm was better and that if she had a butterfly needle, that would work best. She told me she uses a butterfly all the time anyway.

Ok, here we go.

They put me in the tube, or should I say coffin cuz that's what it felt like. I quickly closed my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts, but the only images that kept coming through were X-files episodes where someone either burned to a crisp in an MRI machine or oozed out green goo from their veins when put into one. Pleasant.

They had my listening to oldies, like '50s doo-wop, which isn't really my taste and made the time stretch even more because of it. When I thought we MUST be hitting the 3/4 mark any minute now, the tech announced, "We're almost 1/2 way through." Ugh.

The 3/4 mark finally arrived, and she pulled me out of the machine. She started looking for a vein in the crook of my elbow. She didn't like that vein. She then looked for one on the inside of my wrist by whacking the crap out of it. She liked that one better. I started taking deep breaths to calm myself down. She inserted the needle and taped it down. I was ok.

She put me back into the machine, but about 2 minutes in, as she was trying to inject the dye, it started to burn, I mean really burn. I told her it hurt. She then realized the vein blew. Pushed the needle right out. It was just sticking into my skin. She tried to readjust, but my vein just didn't want the needle in it.

She took me back out of the machine and told me she'd have to try another vein. It was here that I started to panic a little. I knew this was going to happen. I started to tear up because I knew that it was just going to get worse.

So she went back to the first vein in the crook of my elbow. She tried to insert the needle into it, but it just didn't want to go. And it hurt. By this point, I am all-out crying, and I've also started shaking. And I'm freezing. I'm actually afraid that I might be going into shock. She tells me she's going to go get someone else to insert the needle.

Now my teeth are chattering, too, and I can't keep still. I'm almost to the point of hyperventilating. She asks me if I want to quit, but if I do, I have to come back and do it all over again. NO FREAKIN' WAY! I ain't comin' back and doing this again. So I tell her to keep going.

The new woman decides she wants to stick it in the vein on the top of my hand. This agitates me even more until she does it, quick and almost painless and absolutely painless once she tapes it down. Eureka! We've struck gold.

They put me back in the machine, and a few minutes later, start injecting the dye. No problems. I immediately start to calm down. She takes the needle out about a minute later. I finish up the test, and I'm completely calm by the time that happens. I apologize to the tech for freaking out, but she's apologizing even more profusely for me having to go through that. She was really a rather nice woman; I wish I could have met her under better circumstances.

So, I quickly left, and went to the CVS down the street to buy myself a KitKat. Hey, I needed chocolate after that ordeal.

Now I'm just waiting for the doctor to call.