I went in for my MRI this morning. The instructions were only to wear clothing without metal, if possible. I brought along a pair of metal-free pants just in case they didn’t want me to wear my jeans. I wasn’t sure since they were only scanning my head.

When I got to the hospital where the scan was being done, I ended up following a trail of MRI signs for about a mile. Lots of detour due to construction going on. The receptionist in the MRI section didn’t have a sense of humor about my comment that the appointment should have come with a treasure map considering how hard it was to find it. I’m serious though! The only way I found the place was with the help of another patient and two construction guys continuing to point out the way.

So after filling out the usual paperwork, I was taken back to change my pants and lock up my belongings. Since they let me keep my bra on and only required me to move the straps down my arms, I have to question the need for the metal-free pants! Oh well.

This was a similar setup to the other scans with the sliding table I had to lay on. This one came with headphones and my choice of music. However their system was having problems so they were only getting elevator music and even that died within a couple of minutes. They had me put on the headphones (whether I wanted them or not) because then they lift up some kind of clamping system against the headphones to keep my head in place. A thing was put over my face and clamped to the pieces holding my head still. It’s fairly open with a couple of bars horizontally and at least one vertical one. It also has a little mirror so I could see the people talking to me.

Once I was all locked in, the table slid into a white “tunnel” that seemed to only be a couple of feet in diameter. That explained the need for the rubber ball they put in my right hand that they said to press if I really, really needed to get out. One quick look inside the all-white tunnel made me realize that even a person who isn’t particularly claustrophobic could get antsy inside here! Since there really isn’t anything to see except the walls of the tunnel, keeping my eyes closed wasn’t hard.

They talked to me through the headphones. I assume a microphone was in that grid over my face since they could hear me respond. They must have done 8-10 scans. They would let me know how long each one would be just before they started it; a couple were 10 seconds, but most were 1.5 to 3 minutes long. The machine made a loud and different noise for each scan.

Eventually they rolled me back out of the tunnel so they could inject me with a contrast before finishing the scans. So into the tunnel I went again and they did 4 more scans before I was done. After that I changed my pants back to my jeans and left. It was almost exactly 2 hours from when I had arrived.

As it turned out, someone pointed me to a stairway that led to the parking lot right where my car was parked so I didn’t have to walk that long path inside the hospital again.

When I got home I emailed Dr. Onc to let him know the MRI was completed so he could get the results.