MRI’m alone 2

Today I had to get an MRI done of my head because I’ve been having more headaches lately. Brad was too tired to come with since he went with me to the rheumatologist on Wednesday. Since Brad wasn’t coming, I didn’t have anyone to hold Felix while I was in the machine, so I had to leave him at home, too.

I hate going out with a service dog. And I hate going to new medical facilities by myself. But I just kept telling myself I could do it. I brought Cowberry, my strawberry/cow stuffie, with me to provide emotional support.

On the way down, I kept the windows open to keep me a bit more present and not dissociating. Going 65 miles an hour with the windows down is definitely a lot of stimulation of my hair follicles and feeling the wind on my face!

When I arrived at the hospital, which was a 45-min drive away down in Lancaster, I started looking for a van accessible parking spot. They had only 4 accessible parking spots for the entire hospital!!! And of course they were all taken. So I had to take up two spaces and hope that I didn’t get a ticket or anything.

That meant I had to drive my wheelchair in the parking lot, which is always dangerous because people aren’t looking for something the height of a person in a wheelchair. And I almost got run over!!! A guy in a big SUV didn’t see me, and I had to take a quick diversion into an empty parking space to avoid getting hit.

I got into the hospital and checked in, and asked where the restroom was. The lady directed me down a hallway. This restroom was very inaccessible!

There were two doors to get into the restroom, and they were offset from each other so you have to go through one door, hold the door open while you turn and get the other door. Then when I went through the second door, I realized there wasn’t enough space for the door to shut behind my wheelchair without me running into the stalls. And there were no accessible stalls!

So I just left my wheelchair in the doorway and went into a stall and shut the door. Of course while I’m peeing someone comes into the bathroom, so I call out to apologize for blocking the doorway. Luckily the person only needed the sink and was able to use it with my wheelchair there.

When I was done, I backed through the door, but then I was in the small vestibule between doors, facing the wrong way to be able to open the next door. So I had to back and forth and back and forth to turn my wheelchair around until I could finally exit the restroom.

I was so happy to be out of there! Then I went up to the registration area to check in for my appointment. They had big screens that you were supposed to check in on, but they were both at a standing person’s height and I couldn’t really make out the words on the screen, nor reach the screen to input my information. I spent a few minutes trying in vain to make it work, and happened to grab onto the machine to try to leverage myself upwards to see better… and the machine came down! It was adjustable, but there was nothing to indicate that was the case. Regardless, I was just happy I was able to check in.

Then I had to wait my turn to be called to the registration person. I didn’t put my hearing aids in this morning because I didn’t want to risk losing them when I took them out for my MRI, so I could hardly hear the woman checking me in. But we made it through.

After that, I went to the MRI waiting room, and by this time I was in pretty bad shape. I was clutching Cowberry very hard! I know people were looking at me weird because of it, but I needed Cowberry!

They got me back to the MRI pretty quickly afterwards, and I left my wheelchair with all my stuff in the room with the tech and walked to the machine (tricky to do without glasses when you’re legally blind!). I got situated and started the MRI.

I am not claustrophobic, but loud noises really bother me. I’ve had MRIs before, but I didn’t remember how loud they were. So when the loud noises started, I very nearly panicked. I just focused on my breathing, and tried to make songs out of the loud noises. Luckily it only took 15 minutes!

But while I was in there, I realized that my phone alarm to potty dogs was set to go off at 2PM, and they had brought me into the MRI room at about 1:55. So the poor tech had to listen to my Enya ringtone alarm for 10–15 minutes while I was in there. Oops!

I was very glad to be done, and the trip back out to my car and drive home were uneventful, thank goodness!

No pictures, because I was too focused on staying alive and present!