I’m sitting next to a black lab puppy at the coffee shop. He’s being a good boy so I can’t pet him, which is a cruel, cruel fact of training one’s puppy. Still, I get to look at his delightful face so I can’t really complain.
There’s a group of women directly behind me who are having a very girl-talk discussion of their relationships and it is MESSY. One of them just said she can’t wait for her frontal lobe to develop. (Same, girl) It’s very clear that they’re having far more robust sexual lives than I did at their age. Hehe Anyway, I am exhausted just from eavesdropping.
Want to hear the story of my scans earlier this week? After accidentally going to the hospital instead of their outpatient facility two blocks away, I got an MRI with and without contrast. I should have known it wouldn’t go well, given the awkward start. (First I accidentally went to the Cardiac MRI unit at the hospital, then I waited for 30 minutes to get checked in – which made me 15 minutes late even before I walked all the way back to the parking garage, drove two blocks, parked in another garage and went to the third floor of the outpatient center.) According to the staff, this happens a lot, which makes me think they need to work for a solution since we patients are too stupid to do it right.
Anyway, I had my MRI. If you’ve never gotten contrast, let me tell you that you can feel contrast enter your bloodstream; it’s cold. So, when my MRI was done, I pointed out that I hadn’t felt the contrast, you know, in case they’d forgotten to do it. Well, guess what? They’d accidentally closed the IV connector on my arm and since it didn’t form a seal, the contrast leaked everywhere (and left quite a welt on my arm too). They cleaned off the whole MRI bed and we did round two. Luckily for me, I only had to repeat about half of it since the non-contrast MRI had been successful.
We’re not done yet …. Usually, the tech announces when they add the contrast. Instead, I knew I was getting the contrast in my arm because it burned like a hot match held to my flesh. Burned and burned and burned. Meanwhile, I’m going through the announced instructions to hold my breath, and breath normally, and hold my breath, and breath normally. I’m trying not to pant while this stupid contrast is – in my head – stripping the flesh from my body. Then, suddenly, it’s over. The bed slides out of the MRI and I tell the technician that I didn’t know the contrast hurts because it never did before.
Friends, it isn’t supposed to hurt. The IV needle was through my vein and pouring 10 ccs of contrast into my bicep, which had ballooned into a football. The tech called the radiologist who, after quickly checking the scans, said, despite the oopsie, enough contrast had gotten into my system. No need to do a third MRI. We all had a good laugh about my Popeye arm and I went back to the garage, back to the hospital, into their garage, and then down to the correct radiology unit for my CT.
Again, my friends, we aren’t finished. I arrive in the waiting room and someone comes up to me: “Ms Zuroski?” That’s weird. Right? I say as much and the staff person tells me they’ve received multiple phone calls about me. About me? Yes, because, upon a second review, the radiologist determined that there wasn’t enough contrast and I needed a third MRI. Lol
Before that, they did my CT. Then, three – true story – three radiologists came in to look at my well-inflated football arm and determined that I would, in fact, survive to experience another MRI. And so I did. They had a hard time finding a working vein so I have a few extra holes in me today but overall it was a remarkably amusing experience. Sadly, my arm has since deflated. Perhaps I’ll try Popeye’s solution and eat a couple bags of spinach.
Don’t ask because I won’t have results for maybe 10 days. There’s a radiologist shortage. I’ll let you know the news when I know the news.
Much love.
