How to have the best MRI ever...

[Mrs.Cicero]

So, every 5 years, I spend a few days contributing to the advancement of medical science by letting the docs poke and prod me to measure the effects of aging, la di da.  One of the tests they run is a 2 hour long fMRI.  I hate enclosed spaces. I hate feeling constrained.  I hate noisy MRIs.  I managed the first 20 minutes by planning how I would escape the tube if the power went out (go ahead, laugh, but they don't call me a prepper for nothing). For the next 20 minutes, they had me playing a game with a clicker button so I just had to concentrate on that to be distracted from the tube.  Then for the next 20 minutes I had nothing to do or to look at, so I mentally recited "Invictus", and then figured out which melodies I knew that would work with that poem and then I nearly fell asleep (my fallback reaction to stress when I can't change the situation).  Then they changed a bunch of stuff around, and let me pick music to listen to for the rest of the torture session.  I have discovered that SABATON makes even an MRI tolerable.  In the half dozen or so MRIs I've had in my life, Sabaton is the only thing that has made me smile while trapped in the tube  So, just in case you ever have to have one, you know what to do!

And... when I was halfway thru the above paragraph, the power went out in my hotel room, so now I will plan my escape from the hotel... which I should have done as soon as I got here, better late than never... and now it's back, so I can actually post this...

[Historian]

Sabaton: Escape the Tube.

 

The next album.

 

Edited January 25, 2020 by Historian

[tous]

You, ma'am, are an inspiration.

 

When I'm bored or need a distraction, I do math problems.

 

[janice6]

18 hours ago, Mrs.Cicero said:

So, every 5 years, I spend a few days contributing to the advancement of medical science by letting the docs poke and prod me to measure the effects of aging, la di da.  One of the tests they run is a 2 hour long fMRI.  I hate enclosed spaces. I hate feeling constrained.  I hate noisy MRIs.  I managed the first 20 minutes by planning how I would escape the tube if the power went out (go ahead, laugh, but they don't call me a prepper for nothing). For the next 20 minutes, they had me playing a game with a clicker button so I just had to concentrate on that to be distracted from the tube.  Then for the next 20 minutes I had nothing to do or to look at, so I mentally recited "Invictus", and then figured out which melodies I knew that would work with that poem and then I nearly fell asleep (my fallback reaction to stress when I can't change the situation).  Then they changed a bunch of stuff around, and let me pick music to listen to for the rest of the torture session.  I have discovered that SABATON makes even an MRI tolerable.  In the half dozen or so MRIs I've had in my life, Sabaton is the only thing that has made me smile while trapped in the tube  So, just in case you ever have to have one, you know what to do!

And... when I was halfway thru the above paragraph, the power went out in my hotel room, so now I will plan my escape from the hotel... which I should have done as soon as I got here, better late than never... and now it's back, so I can actually post this...

I spend my time in an MRI by seeing in my imagination, each and every phase of the machine's functioning.

I know the sound is the Superconducting Magnets ramping up their field strength to 1 or more Tesla. 

I imagine I can see the Radio Frequency "tickle field" superimposed on the DC magnetic field, causing the particle movement to be able to read out the states of those affected.

I imagine the processing necessary to resolve the information being gathered by the Electric and Magnetic fields.

I found that for me, this make the time go faster, as I am preoccupied relating the sound and confined space to the necessities for making the measurements.

I suppose I could imagine some compromising situation involving another person   confined with me. 

But I need a visual for that, and the physical being I relate to MRI's, is a Ham friend of mine that installed new ones for a living.

I can assure you that any potential for his image slipping into my imagination, frightens me more than anything I can relate to you, so I go with the electrical functions involved. 

Edited January 25, 2020 by janice6

[Swampfox762]

I just had one.  Miserable!  I'm deaf without my hearing aids, AND they had **** music playing in the earphones, AND, when the lady would talk to me, the volume on the music went down a LITTLE but I still , couldn't understand a thing she said!!  finally figured it out.  "Ok, take a deep breath and hold"  (she had a deep German Accent) and then...."Breath".

They got to figure out something better for dudes or dudetts with hearing aids!!!  I gave her a couple of suggestions when I got out?  "Do you have to have the music on"  No.  "Then offer your patients an option to SHUT IT OFF"!!  And, put a fan at one end cause I was sweating Bullets it's so cramped!  AND....don't let em put a blanket on ya!!!  I'll even bring my own fan the next time!!!

PS. I don't have a Gall bladder anymore.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Swampfox762

[Mrs.Cicero]

2 hours ago, Swampfox762 said:

I just had one.  Miserable!  I'm deaf without my hearing aids, AND they had **** music playing in the earphones, AND, when the lady would talk to me, the volume on the music went down a LITTLE but I still , couldn't understand a thing she said!!  finally figured it out.  "Ok, take a deep breath and hold"  (she had a deep German Accent) and then...."Breath".

They got to figure out something better for dudes or dudetts with hearing aids!!!  I gave her a couple of suggestions when I got out?  "Do you have to have the music on"  No.  "Then offer your patients an option to SHUT IT OFF"!!  And, put a fan at one end cause I was sweating Bullets it's so cramped!  AND....don't let em put a blanket on ya!!!  I'll even bring my own fan the next time!!!

PS. I don't have a Gall bladder anymore.

Oh that would have sucked!  Mine was the tiny, tight old-style MRI, but there was a fan for air-flow, the blanket was optional, and I got to pick the music!  It would have driven me nuts to be trapped in the tube with music I hated!

[Mrs.Cicero]

2 hours ago, janice6 said:

I spend my time in an MRI by seeing in my imagination, each and every phase of the machine's functioning.

I know the sound is the Superconducting Magnets ramping up their field strength to 1 or more Tesla. 

I imagine I can see the Radio Frequency "tickle field" superimposed on the DC magnetic field, causing the particle movement to be able to read out the states of those affected.

I imagine the processing necessary to resolve the information being gathered by the Electric and Magnetic fields.

I found that for me, this make the time go faster, as I am preoccupied relating the sound and confined space to the necessities for making the measurements.

I suppose I could imagine some compromising situation involving another person   confined with me. 

But I need a visual for that, and the physical being I relate to MRI's, is a Ham friend of mine that installed new ones for a living.

I can assure you that any potential for his image slipping into my imagination, frightens me more than anything I can relate to you, so I go with the electrical functions involved. 

I spent a good part of the time wondering how exactly the thing worked, and why it made so many bizarre and different sounds!

[Lazy R]

I mentally design drum beats around the clicking.

[Paul53]

There are "Open MRI" machines but I've never seen one. I've also been told the cost for the scan is higher. Keep meaning to google all this. EDIT: I googled it, got this.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Paul53

[jmax]

I hate the damned things because my metal knees warm up from the inside out. Yes they know I have the knees, a couple of screws in a heel and gold crowns. I tell my wife that I have significant scrap value?

[janice6]

2 hours ago, Mrs.Cicero said:

I spent a good part of the time wondering how exactly the thing worked, and why it made so many bizarre and different sounds!

The loudest sound is the current in the large coils around you slowly increasing.  The current ramps up like a saw tooth and suddenly stops.  The stop sometimes makes a sound like a banging.

During the slowly increasing very strong magnetic field, there is a tiny oscillating very high frequency field that rocks the particles back and forth.  

The slowly increasing very strong magnetic field allows selective tissue densities to show up differently in the image.

The combination of the very strong field causing some particles to "flip" (think of a top that suddenly flips from right side up to upside down). 

When the particles are in their natural state (up or down for this example) the very small high frequency oscillating field, rock the particles back and forth but not enough strength to switch their states. 

This allows you to see the ratios of "up's to down's, so you now can see different tissues and tell which is which.

The flipping of these particles (a state change) is the information that on the resulting image you see is the difference between various body tissues.

This difference is what makes the MRI so valuable.  Now you can see some detail in soft body tissue instead of the typical X-Ray which is used for hard body parts (Bone).

Now days with computer enhancement the very small signals from soft tissue in X-Rays are enhanced considerably to produce a better contrast to see softer body parts.

 

The first use of MRI they called it Nuclear Magneto Resonance but the customers that knew nothing of the machine or the principle it worked under, thought the name had something to do with radiation so they were afraid of it. 

This was over come by renaming the process to MRI, Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 

The resonance in the name refers to the tiny oscillating field used to determine the states of the particles discussed above.

Understand that this is a grossly oversimplified explanation of the function, but it is figuratively correct.

 

[janice6]

The strength of the ramping up and down very strong magnetic field is so high in strength that my friend installing an MRI about 30+ miles from my Superconducting magnetic sensor showed up as a very strong signal.

A Tesla is an incredible amount of magnetic field for the most part, only achievable through the use of Superconducting Magnets. 

The magnets are cooled to around 4.2 degrees Kelvin (above absolute zero) by Liquid Helium.

[Swampfox762]

14 hours ago, Mrs.Cicero said:

Oh that would have sucked!  Mine was the tiny, tight old-style MRI, but there was a fan for air-flow, the blanket was optional, and I got to pick the music!  It would have driven me nuts to be trapped in the tube with music I hated!

Mine was the tiny tight type also, but size of it didn't bother me.  First time for me and hopefully the last!  It was a 3 day ordeal in one hospital, for a Blown out Gall Bladder so I really didn't have a choice in where to have the mri.   Overall, the complete care and all people involved were just outstanding.  Thank you Orlando Health!!!

[Huaco Kid]

I don't mind being it the tiny tube.  I can do it all day.  I sleep.

But the magnets seem to pull my brain off.  Just a bit.  You can feel it.

I doctor thank it's when the done.

[Huaco Kid]

I like being in the tube.

It's better than the hospital.

[Huaco Kid]

I don't like hospitals, and they don't like me.  I usually begrudged them.  They always win.

But I get discharged really fast.

[Huaco Kid]

The last time,  the police found me a mile up the interstate, (I had my clothes.  I found the locker) (I only had 39 mile to home,  which was my intent) , and the next day they discharged me.

So everyone was happy.

[Huaco Kid]

The time before that,  I don't know,  they give you drugs,  so I left.  Which is a big deal,  and your not suppose to be allowed to do,  and I smoked all the butts out of the parking-lot  ashtray, and I was confused, so I went back.

And the big lobby-guard got me and took me back.

So I got discharged the next day.

And made a lot of waaay too much paperwork for everyone.

[Huaco Kid]

I unplugged too much stuff in my private room.  Nice!  And took a shower.  Sweet!

But I wasted a jug of morphine, on the floor.  Now they're all mad.  Pissed off nurses is not what you want. You would think you could pull all the needles out of your body you want.  No.  Cannot.

So they put me in intensive care ward.

Now I'm in serious hurt,  because they won't give me a morphine bottle any more.

[Huaco Kid]

So I'm spazzing.  They're nurses.  They've seen it before.

Intensive care was all the glass rooms surrounding the station.

But I was really mad.  Mostly at not being in my private room.

And every nurse in the place was glued to the Olympic gymnastics on the tv.

So I left.

I unplugged everything, again, walked right through the middle, found the locker with my clothes.  And I left.

The lobby-guard doesn't care when you leave.  It must have been leaving time.

He'll head-lock you when you come back.

He's got a radio.

[Rellik]

On 1/24/2020 at 10:28 PM, Mrs.Cicero said:

And... when I was halfway thru the above paragraph, the power went out in my hotel room, so now I will plan my escape from the hotel... which I should have done as soon as I got here, better late than never... and now it's back, so I can actually post this...

I know nothing of this sabaton stuff.  But I once read in a Matt Helm book that escape is not a problem.  You simply walk out the front door, after you kill any one in a position to prevent you leaving.  

[Huaco Kid]

I've been more hospital than that.

It's all probably in my permanent record.

[Huaco Kid]

The one time,  i was on the gurney, about to put a scope down into my stomach, and my wife said, "You'd better tie him down".

I don't remember any other time, but there was precedence..

They said, "It's OK.  It's a light anesthesia."

She said, "No.  He'll fight when he comes out.

I don't remember any of it, it don't remember the first one,  but yeah,  I've broken restraints.

I do that.

They're getting a fight.

[Huaco Kid]

It only lasts a couple of seconds,  and I don't remember any of it.  But my wrists and ankles are seriously bruised when I leave the clinic.

[Huaco Kid]

I don't remember the last one,  but I was all jacked up,  coming out of it,  all tied up,  and I was throwing wicked sign-language at e veryone.

My wife said, that the nurse said, 'What's he saying??"

She said, "I don't know."

And that's as far as it went.  I was probably saying good ****.