next check the brain

Categories: ouch

Date: 18 February 2012 16:35:05

Next, check the brain, (if you can find one.)

Diary of an accident victim Part 37

Monday 21st March 2008

The day of the MRI scan. Never having seen a real MRI machine before, except on TV dramas, I didn't know what to expect.I've seen episodes of House, where the machine usually dramatically finds problems, and on Scrubs it is a great comedy prop, with watches and jewelry getting attracted to the strong magnetic field. But I've never encountered a real one.First bit of advice I'd got from the hospital, after they had made sure I had no metal parts in my body, was to wear clothes without metal in them. T shirts are easy, underwear ditto, but do I possess a pair of trousers without a metal zip? Not even my tracksuit bottoms, which although possess no fly, have two zippered pockets. Ah well, It's the hospital gown for me then. 10am. I encounter the machine for the first time. It's muck smaller than it appears on TV. There's only enough room to get a human body through, they are really claustrophobic.I sit on the table and my bad foot is wedged tightly into a frame thingy. And I am given headphones, to cut the noise of the machine. Some light orchestral music comes on. I'm fed into the machine up to my shoulders. I'm told not to move. Everyone leaves me in the room alone.They said it would be loud, but you can't do bold or capitals in RL conversations. It was LOUD. Really LOUD. The headphones helped to deaden the sound, which is like having a road drill one inch from your eardrums, but not much, the music wasn't much help either, as it was totally drowned out. Six times the noise comes on, and six times I'm moved backwards and forwards slightly in the machine. Then very undramaticly I'm slid out of the machine and told I can go. Next Wednesday I'm to get my results.

Wednesday 23rd.

I get a letter from the solicitors... Now, over two years after the accident, they have decided that as I lost conciousness as a result of the accident, they want a consultant neurosurgeon to check me out.

Wednesday 30th.

Today I went back to see the consultant. Yet more painful manipulation of the ankle. I'm getting used to the routine, the doctor does a number of painful things, and I have to say which one hurts most. A sort of sadistic game show. Seven hours on I'm still feeling the after effects. Next week, if the solicitors agree to pay by then, I'm back to the hospital for a steroid injection in the offending joint. And a warning that it could be very sore for a couple of days afterwards.

No date

I'm beginning to wonder about this victim thing... In describing myself as the victim of an accident, as I do in this blog, am I keeping myself from moving on. I'd like to move it into the past tense, "I was the victim of an accident," rather than "I am the victim..." but this medical and legal thing seems to be keeping me trapped in the victim mentality, and preventing me from moving on and getting on with my life. And it's all taking so long. I am not a naturally patient person.

to be continued...

This was first posted on St Pixels blog on 30 April ’08 To see the blogs about the accident and recovery together please use the “ouch” link under Categories