MRIday

It's not Friday. It's MRIday. 

Get it?  I crack myself up.

I did it again, did you get that one too?  I crack myself up, like I cracked my own spine from the inside a few years ago? 

This is the humor you get when I'm on a cocktail of Hydrocodone, Valium, Flexeril, and Baclofen.  You'll have to excuse me.

This morning I spent nearly two hours with my old nemesis, the MRI scanner.  I'm so stinking proud of myself for how I handled it that I could hardly wait to come home and tell everyone about it.  It was that good, really.  

They had Pandora so I could listen to music I specifically liked (thank you Imagine Dragons channel!) and did the best they could to make me comfortable on the super hard table, and did a really excellent job of preparing me for each step of the process and being honest about how long it would take to get all the pictures they need of both my cervical and thoracic spine. 

I was praised for doing well at each stage of the process and given lots of encouragement.  And then, much sooner than I thought, it was all finished, and I hadn't ever panicked or freaked out.  Not truly sooner, it really was almost two hours, but it hadn't felt like two hours.  The pain had been bearable.  The heat had been too warm, but not stifling.  I was very relieved when it was over, but not weeping and gasping.  It was as different from past MRI experiences as it could possibly be.

As usual, I'm hoping to learn nothing from today's images. Nothing at all. Not finding any reason for why I'm in terrible pain is better than almost all the actual answers to why I'm in terrible pain. When they look at my tumor and my spine and my ribs and shoulders and wherever else they go hunting for culprits, I hope they see nothing.  Then we can relax, and say this is probably just nerves regenerating and awakening, and after a few weeks of intense, searing pain, they should eventually calm down and behave.

This afternoon, I'm rewarding myself with a sandwich from IHOP for lunch, and recovering by spending my afternoon in my cozy bed with a little cup of M&M's and my husband providing a neverending refill service on my ice water to help my kidneys process the contrast dye out of my system.  I'm so fortunate to have him to help take care of me.  Here's to a well-earned rainy afternoon nap!