Adventures in the MRI tube

Okay, some background. About 4 years ago I fell off my bike in an amazing display of super-clumsiness and end up breaking my elbow. More specifically, the radial head basically split in three directions. It hurt like a mother fucker, my friends. Seriously. Anyway, it healed as best as that kind of fracture can heal.

Over the past year or so, it's really started hurting again. Popping at random times, dull achy pain, etc. It finally got annoying enough that I went back to the ortho to have it checked out. I expected there to be some arthritis, but the x-ray was clear. That's good news - no arthritis... But doesn't explain why it's hurting.

So the next step was to have an MRI done of my elbow. I've never had an MRI done before. I've seen pictures though. You get to lay on your back and take a nice nap while they little machine does its thing, right?

WRONG - did you know that to have an MRI done of your elbow you actually have to get into the world's most uncomfortable position and then HOLD IT completely STILL for over 30 minutes? I had to lay on my stomach with my right arm extended in front of me, then sort of had my head off to the side laying at a bizarred angle on top of the little arm rest thing. My other arm is at my side, basically under my hip so I will fit into the tube.

Now at first, this position is sort of uncomfortable. After 5 minutes, it starts to hurt. After 10 minutes, I am in pain. After 15 minutes, my arm starts to go numb and I realize that I have a single hair tickling my nose, which I cannot scratch because I can't move either of my arms. I spend the next 5 minutes trying to blow the hair away but my head is at a weird angle so I'm blowing but it's not really in the direction of the hair so that doesn't help.

So now I'm at about 20 minutes and I think I'm starting to have some sort of weird reaction. I'm starting to lose track of time and that MRI is LOUD so I start kind of listening the ticks and pings and whirs to distract myself. At this point I sort of fell asleep (went into total zone out mode, more like it). Then the lady says - doing great, only a few more...

By now my hand is completely numb and my shoulder really really hurts. At this point I resort to the trick that got me through labor... I just started saying the alphabet over and over and over... A sort of zen mantra for me.

Now we'are at 30 minutes... The lady says only two more... Okay, I can do this... alphabet alphabet... zone out... whir click whiiiiiir, click click click... Why didn't I ask for some valium or something? Being high would make this so much more pleasant... a, b, c, d, e, f....

That voice again - only one more... 3 minutes and you'll be done... Okay, I will now recite the alphabet 9 times and when I am done, this will be over... I open my eyes and start noticing all the little things inside the MRI tube. I can see that damn hair in front of my eye. My shoulder has gone numb. I can't feel my fingers.

Then silence. I'm done!!! I'm done!! The lady comes in and I suddenly realize that my arm is completely numb and I can't get up. She helps me up and my fingers start tingling as the blood rushes back in. Then she asks me to sign something. I tell her to give me a few minutes until my fingers become functional again.

I go sit in the lobby and look at the clock - to my surprise I realize I was in the tube for over 45 minutes. I completely lost track of the time. My shoulder aches. They hand me my films to take back to the doctor. I'm done. I call my husband to come pick me up. He asks how it was. I tell him that tonight I will definitely need a shoulder rub.