I was diagnosed with Degenerative Arthritis of the Spine about two years ago. I have dealt with the pain by doing Yoga, stretching, and laying on a heating pad every night. I’d like to think that I can tolerate pain pretty well these days.
In April though, I started experiencing more severe pain than usual in my neck and upper back and decided that I needed to see my doctor again. The doctor checked me out, gave me a shot of something that made it so that I couldn’t drive, and said I needed to get an X-ray and MRI right away. Party time, right?
The X-ray was no trouble at all. Quick and easy.
The MRI on the other hand.. quick and easy was not the case.
I am a bit claustrophobic. I don’t like sitting with my back to the crowd because I prefer to always see how I can get out of a room if I need to. I don’t like hanging out in closets, and I prefer not to go through underground tunnels when driving if I can avoid it.
During my MRI this morning I thought I was going to have to push what the nurse called ‘the rescue button‘ for at least the first 5 minutes of being inside the narrow MRI tube. My heart was pounding what seemed like a thousand beats per minute and I thought I was going to stop breathing because I thought surely I wouldn’t be able to escape from the narrow tube if I needed to or the tube was going to collapse on top of me. In hindsight I know that if I really needed to get out of the tube I could have scooted out of the tube and that the chances of the tube collapsing on me were very slim. Those facts were not at all reality while I was inside the MRI machine.
The alien space invasion
After I got over the claustrophobia issue, I felt like I was in the center of an alien space invasion.. for 30 minutes. The noises that came out of that machine were insane! There were loud booms, ticks, and zappy sounds for the 30 minutes I was inside the machine.
After 30 minutes the nurses voice came through a speaker and he said “It’s over now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”. It’s like he had no idea that I was just zipped into another dimension for 30 minutes. Really, how could he not know?
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Wow! 30 minutes in an enclosed space is a really really long time! Hope the pain is better now?
It was a long time! I am still uncomfortable but it’s going to take physical therapy to get better. I’m going to start therapy very soon. Thanks for the comment!