Its MRI day. My husband goes with me. My appointment is for 3 pm and I arrive at 2:30 because I know there is always paperwork. Yup, I’m right, I spend 15 minutes doing paperwork. Then the news, even with insurance I have to pay $479.00. I sigh and write the check wondering where that’s going to come out of my budget. It is what it is, I’ll figure it out later.
I sit in the waiting room, no one else is in there until 4:30 pm. Finally I am called back and shown to a cubical to strip down and put on a hospital gown. I am starting to think I need to go buy one of my own that will fit me to take with me everywhere. I sit in the cubical waiting another 15 minutes to be taken to the MRI room. The technician hooks is an I.V. for the dye the are using.
I am placed face down on the table. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, my hospitals gowns always have to be put on to open in the front. My breasts are inserted into holes on the table and gently squeezed and held in place by plastic barriers. The machine isn’t quite made for short people and I am only 5 foot 3 so it was a little uncomfortable but not painful. I place ear plugs in my ears to help with the loud banging that happens during an MRI.
Oh my, ten minutes in and I have to pee! That’s par for the course. I definitely do not want to start over so I will just have to hold it. Lord please help me there! I hear the technician over a speaker from the windowed room telling me we have about 30 minutes remaining. Crap, my kidneys are going to explode. I can do this! I have will power.
The dyes feels pretty warm going through my body but it doesn’t hurt. Finally its over and she comes in and pulls the table out of the tube. She removed my I.V. and I tell he I really have to pee before we do anything else. She laughed and shows me to a restroom right outside the door.
Now she takes me back to the cubical to redress and says I have to wait 10 more minutes to be sure there is no reaction to the dye before I can leave. Wait, wait, wait…. story of y life these days.
Finally, I can leave. My poor husband has been in the waiting room all this time. The office is closed. He tells me when the desk clerk left she instructed him to make sure nothing was forgotten because we could get out the door but it would not let us back in.
We will wait for the results. This MRI was imaging both breasts and all lymph nodes to make sure there were no nasty surprises other than the one we already knew about.
Breast Cancer Life 