Today's MRI

I had my bilateral breast MRI this afternoon. I thought I was being smart by scheduling it during the day when Cha was in daycare, but I'm learning that nothing is going to be that easy. Thanks to a mini ice-storm her school closed early and I was stuck trying to find someone to watch her. There was lots of last minute stress and running around which I think led to me freaking out in the MRI tube.

I thought I was doing fine until they started rolling me in the tube. I immediately got hit with a wave of anxiety and felt very closed in. I wasn't sure how I was going to breathe and felt like the whole thing would cave in on me. It's similar to how I feel when I drive thru tunnels.

I realized that there was no getting out of the test so I fought my hardest to calm down and breathe. I tried to think of happy thoughts but that only lasted so long. The noise was so loud that I decided to just go with it and keep myself occupied by counting the pounding chugs from the machine. The technician kept announcing how much longer and the time for each round of test. I learned that there were 130 beeps for the 3 minute tests and counting down made things easier.

The longest part was when they shot the dye into my arm. I don't think I would have noticed had the tech not warned me and cautioned that that was the most important part of the whole test and that I had to remain perfectly still. The minute she said that I had an uncontrollable urge to cough and scratch my nose. That was a tough five minutes.

I was out of the robe and walking out the door in just over an hour. I am guessing I'll hear back from Dr. K by Monday. I am planning to give him a call Monday afternoon if I don't hear from him first.

I read this article before this test this morning. Based on those results I am expecting the surgeon to come back and say there are many other areas of concern and perhaps suggest another biopsy. Since breast MRIs have a high level of false positives, I'm not going to worry until the gene tests come back. Right now I'm feeling like I'll be facing a double mastectomy regardless, so the MRI results are a moot point.