Tuesday, August 7, 2012

What Tuesday Brought

As Tuesday dawned, I realized that I was in for a big treat.  All kinds of firsts that I had never experienced before.  I had orders in hand which were both marked, STAT and was off to the races to find someone to perform the required tests.  My orders were as follows: MRI of the pelvis and abdomen with contrast and without contrast, followed by a chest x-ray.  Good times.

I'm learning on this journey that there are two ways you can handle things: you can give up and hope that you don't die, or you can pull on your boots and get to work.  I chose to sit in the middle for a bit.  I wanted to just sit down and make the world stop for a bit until I could get a good grasp on the situation.  My friends had different ideas.

They decided that one of them would take my kiddo G with her, and the other decided that I would be going with her to get the tests done.  Okay then! I got into the truck, after not being able to find my shoes that I wanted to wear, and sat there numbly looking out the window.  I conversed and talked, but was not enjoying myself. 

I had looked online to find out what facility my PPO would cover and found that the hospital up the road would work nicely.  We got there and sat for a bit before being called into admitting.  In admitting I made a nice friend.  Her name is Heidi and she had a son that played football.  I'm all about football, since my hubby 'Coach' is a bonafide football coach.  She and I talked for a while about the sport and how her son had switched to baseball and was excelling in that, when my phone rang.

Evidently Dr. G didn't trust me to the make the appointments myself, because an MRI center up the street was calling to find out when I could come in.  I thanked Heidi for being fabulous and off we went again! At the new facility I waited for a bit of time before being taken back to have the MRI done.  I was not planning on doing the tests today.  I was planning on scheduling them and then going home to fold laundry.  Thus, I had bobby pins in my hair....these are a big no-no with the heavy duty magnet.  I'm sure everyone else knows this, but I didn't.  I pulled those out and then was taken in to have an IV run.

I was given earplugs, and a cushion for my legs, then told to hold my hands above my hear; near my ears.  It's a tad bit uncomfortable but I found myself channeling the dentist during a root canal and was about to fall asleep when I was told, through a speaker, to hold my breath.............................................................and breath normally.  Yep.  I held my breath for 30 seconds at a time, for 45 minutes straight, until that part of the test was over.  I yawned a couple of times, but was always jolted back into reality with a loud "BREATH NORMALLY!" The loud whirring, thumping, ticking, drumming came and went- but I was fine.

Nothing was concrete yet.  As of this day, I could still kid myself into believing it was merely a cyst; perhaps just a benign growth.  I attempted to enjoy myself as I was cuddled in the large plastic tube.  Then my mind began to wander.  I thought again about my kids, about what this would mean, about how many things I still needed to do.  Tears started to flow and then I was annoyed at myself.  I was going to live and that was the end of it.

When it was all over, the contrast dye injected through the IV and multiple views taken- I was free from the magical tube where minds are allowed to wander.  When I got up from the table, Shelly, who ran the MRI machine gave me a big hug and wished me luck.  Normally this would have made me smile, considering the circumstances, It was hard to muster a pat back.

Afterward I was sent to the chest x-ray machine.  It wasn't nearly as long, in fact it only took a few minutes.  Stand up against the wall, move to profile.  Done and done!!  I was out the door and off to home where my children were getting out of school.

Another member of the Fab 5 accompanied me on this crazy day.  She sat in the waiting room, kept track of my stuff, and drove me all over creation that day.  While I was in the MRI; she bought my family dinner.  It's nice to be taken care of when all you want to do is crawl into bed and cry for your mother.  Results were to follow the next day.

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