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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
MRI generates high anxiety
By Wanda Orton
Contributor Published October 14, 2009 Eavesdropping (an occupational habit), I listened in the doctor’s waiting room as another patient ranted on and on about having an MRI.
As his voice grew louder, I peeped over the magazine I was reading to see what the whiner looked like. He was elderly but obviously still had a fighting spirit. No one was going to tell him what to do and by golly, no one was going to force him to get into one of those closed-in tubes. “Like being in a coffin,” he told the receptionist. “I’m claustrophobic. Can’t do it.”
His wife kept trying to get him to drop the subject.
“This isn't even the place where they have the MRI equipment,” she said. “If you have to have an MRI, it won’t be done here.”
With that bit of good news, he seemed calmer. He walked away from the receptionist, sat down by his wife and shut up. Knowing that he would not be dragged kicking and screaming into an MRI room right there and then improved his outlook. The receptionist looked happier, too.
Although it may appear that I’m making fun of the claustrophobic complainer, I’m not.
I, too, have claustrophobia and I, too, never wanted to have an MRI. Ever!
A week later, my doctor ordered one.
Quickly, I emailed a friend who was a veteran of two MRIs. Both times, she replied, it helped to have a wash cloth covering her face so she couldn’t see where she was.
Write that down: “Wash cloth over face.”
The doctor said I could take a pill (no health care reform jokes, please) and it would make me less anxious.
Write that down: “Get prescription day before the MRI.”
On the day of, I woke up much earlier than the hour set on my alarm clock. There was little to do at the break of dawn, except to hurry up and wait, and check my handbag umpteen times to make sure the anti-anxiety pill was still there. Directions said to take it a half-hour before the MRI.
When I arrived a half-hour early, the receptionist said I needed to fill out some papers, show insurance cards, etc. And I said, “I need to take my pill.”
When I finally entered the MRI domain (this is it ...) I asked for a wash cloth to cover my face. The two people in charge agreed and they said it may also help to listen to music. At times the clanking noises from the machine would drown out the music, but would I prefer country, popular, classical …. ?
Classical, please. I started to specify Chopin or Mozart but decided not to push it. Any kind of classical would do.
As soon as I rolled inside the white tube, blinded by a wash cloth, the music began, and it definitely wasn’t Chopin or Mozart. Sounded more like Stravinsky on steroids. Pretty soon, the clanking noise of the MRI machine joined with the jumble of notes, forming a dissonant free-for-all.
The MRI hammering stopped and again I was left alone with Stravinsky. Then ... here we go again ... clang, clang went the MRI but this time I could detect a Chopin nocturne in the background. Alas, it ended all too soon.
The sound of music was not my favorite thing during the MRI, and I didn’t care for all that machine noise, either.
But you know what got me through the whole experience? Not the wash cloth over the face, not the anti-anxiety pill, but — write this down — the 23rd Psalm.
I promise you, remembering that comforting, soothing refrain from the Old Testament will get you through anything.
Take a psalm.
Wanda Orton is a retired managing editor for The Baytown Sun.
Contributor Published October 14, 2009 Eavesdropping (an occupational habit), I listened in the doctor’s waiting room as another patient ranted on and on about having an MRI.
As his voice grew louder, I peeped over the magazine I was reading to see what the whiner looked like. He was elderly but obviously still had a fighting spirit. No one was going to tell him what to do and by golly, no one was going to force him to get into one of those closed-in tubes. “Like being in a coffin,” he told the receptionist. “I’m claustrophobic. Can’t do it.”
His wife kept trying to get him to drop the subject.
“This isn't even the place where they have the MRI equipment,” she said. “If you have to have an MRI, it won’t be done here.”
With that bit of good news, he seemed calmer. He walked away from the receptionist, sat down by his wife and shut up. Knowing that he would not be dragged kicking and screaming into an MRI room right there and then improved his outlook. The receptionist looked happier, too.
Although it may appear that I’m making fun of the claustrophobic complainer, I’m not.
I, too, have claustrophobia and I, too, never wanted to have an MRI. Ever!
A week later, my doctor ordered one.
Quickly, I emailed a friend who was a veteran of two MRIs. Both times, she replied, it helped to have a wash cloth covering her face so she couldn’t see where she was.
Write that down: “Wash cloth over face.”
The doctor said I could take a pill (no health care reform jokes, please) and it would make me less anxious.
Write that down: “Get prescription day before the MRI.”
On the day of, I woke up much earlier than the hour set on my alarm clock. There was little to do at the break of dawn, except to hurry up and wait, and check my handbag umpteen times to make sure the anti-anxiety pill was still there. Directions said to take it a half-hour before the MRI.
When I arrived a half-hour early, the receptionist said I needed to fill out some papers, show insurance cards, etc. And I said, “I need to take my pill.”
When I finally entered the MRI domain (this is it ...) I asked for a wash cloth to cover my face. The two people in charge agreed and they said it may also help to listen to music. At times the clanking noises from the machine would drown out the music, but would I prefer country, popular, classical …. ?
Classical, please. I started to specify Chopin or Mozart but decided not to push it. Any kind of classical would do.
As soon as I rolled inside the white tube, blinded by a wash cloth, the music began, and it definitely wasn’t Chopin or Mozart. Sounded more like Stravinsky on steroids. Pretty soon, the clanking noise of the MRI machine joined with the jumble of notes, forming a dissonant free-for-all.
The MRI hammering stopped and again I was left alone with Stravinsky. Then ... here we go again ... clang, clang went the MRI but this time I could detect a Chopin nocturne in the background. Alas, it ended all too soon.
The sound of music was not my favorite thing during the MRI, and I didn’t care for all that machine noise, either.
But you know what got me through the whole experience? Not the wash cloth over the face, not the anti-anxiety pill, but — write this down — the 23rd Psalm.
I promise you, remembering that comforting, soothing refrain from the Old Testament will get you through anything.
Take a psalm.
Wanda Orton is a retired managing editor for The Baytown Sun.