December 6, 2023
David had two MRIs at Piedmont Atlanta. He was in the machine for 2 hours and 45 minutes. He said it was very long and very exhausting. This was David’s first rectal MRI scan so that was a treat for him. He said at one point he was in just his t-shirt, his socks and his bright orange NB shoes. No pants and no undies. I couldn’t help but think of him Pooh Bearing through the exam room. We are both still laughing about that.
Once finished with the scans, we went over to Dr. N’s office for a quick pre surgery visit. He pulled up the liver scan briefly and immediately noticed a new area of concern on the liver scan. The radiologist’s report was not back yet so he asked for it to be expedited as surgery was scheduled for the following Monday and it was Wednesday afternoon. Dr. N said he would need to discuss the scans in Friday’s surgical meeting and would let us know something Friday. We were stunned. This was not something we remotely expected, although I do not know why we expect anything at this point after being faced with so many set backs. We continued on to pre-admission and got set up for surgery the following week. We both had very heavy and uneasy feelings leaving the hospital this time.
Fun Fact: The main magnet in an MRI magnetic field is 140,000 times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field.
PATIENT PATIENCE (-d)
Almost three hours in scanning machine is a long time, even with Christmas music and as many things to make you as comfortable as possible. It’s a lot of staring at the seams where the pieces of the machine meet, and it’s a lot of trying to make patterns out of sounds that don’t really have any pattern at all. That said, there wasn’t a moment that seemed unnecessary, and I wanted (and want) all the information I can get. Once it was over I was very thankful and ready to review the results. After seeing an obvious second spot on my liver I was slightly less excited, but still confident that I was (and am) in good hands. This is another one of those points where at any point earlier I would have been super excited to be doing something again. Preparing for surgery, getting ready to have something removed, but again as time grows closer it’s very very much less exciting. I got more nervous as time progressed, but then found myself much more reassured by the pre-op nurse who walked us through every step of the process. Not my first time doing this obviously, but there was something about her ability to check every line and double-check every reference that helped. It seemed to take the rest of the day and I don’t even know how long we were there, but at the end I was grateful for every minute of the attention and detail. All in all it was an exhausting day and I was glad it was over.
