Traumatizing MRI

On Tuesday I was scheduled to have an emergency MRI. The "funny" sensation that I had been having throughout my left leg got worse over the weekend and when I mentioned it to the resident on-call on Monday, he felt it was necessary to rule out anything serious.

I went to Stanford at 4pm for my radiation treatment and I was told to be at radiology for my MRI at 6:30pm. After waiting for an hour and seeing other patients who were there after me go in before me I questioned the receptionist on why it was taking so long for me to be called. She said my appointment was scheduled for 7:30pm and they were behind schedule. I was finally called in around 8:15pm and was in the MRI machine by 8:30pm. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep for the first half of the test. When I woke up I felt like it had been forever since I was in the machine. The "jack hammering" noise was still going on so I knew the scan was still in progress, but there was no communication from the technician in regards to how far along we were. After about 15 minutes I started to get frustrated and panicked and asked that they take me out of the machine right away. When the technician came into the room, he said I had been in the machine for approximately 1hr 15min and I had another 45min to go. I started crying cause I couldn't imagine how I could possibly lay still for that much longer without moving in an enclosed space. I've had numerous MRI's done before and never had one last longer than an hour. I told the technician I would go through with it, because I didn't want to come back another day and start the process over. They took a few more pictures, then injected some contrast, and then continued with the remainder pictures. I was finally taken out of the machine around 10:30pm. By then I was a complete emotional wreck. I've never had such a bad experience with a test. I was given no explanation as to why the procedure took so long, so I had no idea if was an error on their part or if they had found something seriously wrong which required them to take so many pictures.

Today I met with my radiology doctor after my treatment. He said that my MRI showed no indication of disease in the spine or a tumor pressing on the spine, however it did show several fractures on both hips. This is most likely related to being on Prednisone long term. He didn't recommend any follow up, but I will definitely be following up with my oncologist when I see her next week. If something isn't done about this problem now, it will only get worse and cause more discomfort. Right now I tend to experience hip/lower back pain when sitting for long periods of time. As for the "funny" feeling on my leg, he thinks that might be a side effect of the chemo.

Tomorrow I will be done with my 2nd week of radiation treatment. I will be officially done next Thursday! So far the main side effect has been pain when swallowing food and I'm starting to feel very fatigued. Of course I don't know if that's from the radiation or from the lack of sleep from working so many hours.