MRI Examination

Off I toddled for my 5pm appointment. Once again, my husband was at my side, feeling just as anxious as me, I have no doubt.

The procedure seemed very straight forward this time. A canula was inserted into a vein in my hand ready for the contrast dye. A very sweet male nurse showed concern at having to do this to me and was very sympathetic to the fact that I may feel a little discomfort. The old hand that I am, I chuckled and assured him that a small jab in the hand was nothing but I appreciated his bedside manner.

Everyone was pleased to see me looking so well and couldn't believe it had been 2 years since removal of my benign meningioma tumour.

Funnily enough, I arrived feeling far more nervous this time than I did last time when I had no inkling of what the results would be.

All jewellery was left at home, I put on the fabulous hospital gown, was strapped in to the head cage and ready to go.

The familiar clicks and knocks started and half way through the procedure the contrast dye was administered. It took about 40 minutes this time and I started to think about the results as I was laying there as still as possible.

If it's all clear I would be ecstatic and would stop thinking about it all again for a while but I began to feel like I was teetering on a precipice because if it wasn't, it would all start again.....would it be in the same location, what kind of tumour, what treatment would be possible and oh, so many questions not to mention the fears.

You also start asking yourself the "why me" question and the sad thing is research has still not come up with anything conclusive.

Why Another MRI?

I think it was the Russell Watson story that unnerved me a little. 'Regrowth of a previous benign brain tumour!' Now once again, the whole story will not have been reported and they may not have removed the whole of the initial tumour like they did mine - but let me tell you, it doesn't take a lot to knock your confidence when you are dealing with something as scary as a brain tumour experience and I never feel totally confident about anything until the proof is in my hands.

So I sat down and rang the hospital and told them I wanted to come in again for another MRI. Nobody deterred me. I thought I would probably have to wait a week for an appointment but they said they could see me at 5pm that day. Well I have to share with you that I said, 'thank you. I'll see you at 5 then', put the phone down and promptly burst into tears. Madness I know, but that meant that I had to front up to the issue fully again with the possibility that I may not feel so chirpy again tomorrow once I had the results.

Believe me, I'm not a pessimist! My anxiety levels just rocketed.