Fortunately the waiting game didn’t last too long. I had a date for my MRI scan through within 2 weeks and 1 weeks later I was off to the hospital at the crack of dawn on a rainy Thursday morning.
Doctor W had signed me off work for a month earlier that week – my response had been “a month, that long, really?”. I was still expecting to wake up and find my symptoms had miraculously disappeared over night. I couldn’t persuade him otherwise though, he was adamant that I would need a month because it would take a couple of weeks for the results to come through and my symptoms hadn’t improved very much (the numbness had reduced but the pins and needles had spread).
Luckily (or unluckily depending how you look at it) I’d had to go for an MRI scan 7 or 8 years ago following a car crash so I knew what to expect. More importantly I knew what to wear! As silly as I felt wearing a bikini under a baggy t-shirt and leggings it was better than the poor man waiting in the cubicle next to me in a very attractive hospital gown and nothing else!
Also, had I not been for one before I may have freaked out when there was a power failure just as they were about to slide me in! Fifteen minutes later after they’d rebooted the scanner (by doing the classic switch everything off, wait a minute and then switch everything back on) I made it inside. It’s hard to describe what it’s like being in an MRI scanner. I know lots of people find it scary and claustrophobic but they don’t bother me. If it wasn’t for them being incredibly noisy I’d probably have fallen asleep. The noise is weird – kind of like a ZX Spectrum games console loading up combined with someone alternating between hammering and drilling on a building site. They scanned my brain first and then they sent me further into the scanner to do my spine – it probably took around 40 minutes in total.
The Radiographer advised me it would normally take 2 to 3 weeks for the results to be sent to my Doctor. But wouldn’t you know it, the following Monday only 4 days after my scan I get a phonecall from the receptionist at the Doctors surgery. “We’ve received the results of your MRI scan and the Doctor would like to discuss them with you, will you be able to take a call from him tomorrow morning?” the receptionist asked. That was what clinched it for me, Doctor W had told me to leave it a week before I rang to see if they had heard anything, yet they were in already & he was ringing me to discuss them.
It sounds really negative, like I went into that scanner already thinking I had MS. I suppose I kind of did, not that I wanted to have MS and I still don’t but I was prepared for the possibility or rather the likelihood. So when Doctor W rang me the next day (Part 1) it was okay, I could deal with it. Having to tell other people & there response – well that’s a whole other story, but I was okay or rather I was going to be.
TrevisMS 