thistlechaser: (Cat with bandaid)
[personal profile] thistlechaser
I meant to write about my MRI after it happened, but life got busy.

MRIs: Terrifying for the first moments, then very, very, very boring.

My MRI took 60 minutes. So that was 60 full minutes of laying on a cold, hard slab, naked but for those paper gowns, in a cold room, with a cold breeze blowing on me. And you cannot move. You can't shift, you can't stretch, you can't move at all, you have to stay as perfectly still as you can. It was very long, very cold, and very very boring.

The first moments were scary as heck -- what if I had metal inside me that I forgot about/hadn't known about? I know, it's a silly though now -- if you had a metal pin in you, you'd remember it. But when you're being pushed into a machine with a magnet so strong it would rip a metal pin right out of your bone and out through your body, it seems a more reasonable fear.

There was no music, no pictures to look at, nothing at all. Just a white room and a very loud machine. I've never been in a situation like that before -- being perfectly still with not a single thing to do, see, or listen to. Even as a kid, punished by being made to stand in a corner, you never have to stand there a whole hour. (Or I never did.)

I got it done on Tuesday, and Wednesday my doctor's office called me to make an appointment next week to go over the results. As bone infections are very, very serious, if the MRI had found something, I'm sure they would have wanted to see me sooner than a week later, so I'm not worried about the result.

But that leads us back to the original question -- why has my toe been getting infected on and off for more than a year now? And I'm slightly worried, because I think the usual antibiotic isn't working this time. I've been on it a week, and while it's not getting worse, it's not getting much better either (or if it is getting better, it's very slow). I'm allergic to three antibiotics, two of the best ones against this strain of infection I have, so that makes it even harder to deal with this.

Darned toe, stop being infected!

Date: 2016-03-10 05:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] changeling72.livejournal.com
I would worry about forgetting about a piece of metal too!

Date: 2016-03-10 05:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com
Yeah! At least being bored is the better option when the alternative is being scared.

Date: 2016-03-11 01:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bacchuslives.livejournal.com
What's the infecting organism? Treating recurrent infections with a single antibiotic will invariably lead to a resistant culture, though it depends on the bug. Usually they'd want to hit it with multiple drugs each with a different mechanism of action. It's harder for the bug to adapt that way. Drug allergies are my daily nightmare...

60 minutes is a long MRI! I've had two in my life, but I don't think that my time in the magnet was more than 15 minutes each. Your description of the experience is perfect though! It made me laugh at just how vivid a memory it conjured up.

Date: 2016-03-11 04:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com
Some kind of MRSA, but I don't recall which one offhand. It's one of the ones susceptible to penicillin, which is both surprising and nice, since it's the new antibiotics I'm allergic to.

Treating recurrent infections with a single antibiotic will invariably lead to a resistant culture

That makes sense... I wonder why the doctor is giving me the same one each time?

Mine was a longer than average since it was with and without contrast. So the without part was 40 minutes, then I got the injection, then 20 minutes more. Still, 15 minutes would have been so much better!

Date: 2016-03-11 05:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] orangerful.livejournal.com
That sounds pretty awful. I probably would have started talking to myself haha. Hope they can figure out your toe! My friend has a really messed up to right now and it just won't heal. She had to cancel our hiking outing on Saturday because it is doing gross things.

Date: 2016-03-11 05:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com
I know the "doing gross things" part too well. Mine has had a discharge for a full week now... ugh. I hope hers gets better soon!

I actually did think about talking to myself, but there's some kind of intercom system, so I didn't want the tech to think I needed help. (If you need help, they have to start the tests all over...)

Date: 2016-03-11 10:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ashmedai.livejournal.com
Yeah, if they make an appointment a week later, I wouldn't worry too much either. Still, fingers crossed!

Date: 2016-03-12 12:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com
Agreed, whew. Will know for sure on Monday!

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