MRI’s and the evil of diagnostics.
Okay, so Thursday was the Day of Suck. I had gone to bed the night before feeling the worst I had since the few weeks of weirdness after birthing my son. I was shaky, tingly, numb, had blurred vision, chest pain, and pain shooting down my left arm. Great symptoms. It started while playing Candy Land (which would give anyone an aneurysm) and got progressively worse throughout the evening. The doctor’s office told me to go to the ER. I figured there was nothing wrong, and was going to blow them off, until my MIL got a hold of me, and dragged me in. They yelled “straight back” and wheeled me to lucky room number 7. Oxygen tubes went into my nose, electrodes were stuck all over me, and I was asked hundreds of questions. I guess they thought I was going to stroke out right there on the bed, but I told them it was really not this big a deal, and to not fuss over me—that and I didn’t want to see the bill for all of this.
They ordered a chest x-ray. Fine. CT scan. Fine—had one two months ago, confirming that, yes, I did in fact have something other than bullshit in my head. Next was the MRI of my head (to check for hemorrhaging).
That MRI was the single most traumatic experience of my life. I’m not claustrophobic, but to be shoved into a tube and have your head strapped into a plastic cage is pretty creepy. But I could handle that. What I didn’t remember is that I’m very sensitive to magnets. Holding anything with a strong magnetic fields gives me the nasty tinglies. Well, multiply that by a thousand, and that’s why I squeezed the notifier bulb, and spent the next 15 minutes shaking like a leaf and sobbing “don’t make me go back in there.” Well, they did. It wasn’t so bad on the other tests (7 scans, total) since the magnetic reversals were not so fast. It still sucked, though. Don’t do it if you can help it.
So, what was the diagnosis, after all of that crap? Effing panic attacks. WTF? I don’t need this right now. I’m too busy being the ADD queen, while going to school, starting a new job, taking care of the house, and doing the yardwork, and taking care of a screaming nutjob of a kid. I don’t have time for panic attacks, especially when they’re debilitating and life-consuming. I don’t know why I have these damn things, but they effing suck, and I hope I don’t ever have one again. Dammit.
http://www.apa.org/topics/anxietyqanda.html
Thank God for KoL, or I wouldn’t have made it.
