I Did It!!!

Thank you all, for your wonderful, constructive, caring and oft-times humorous support of me through this difficult time. I did it.

It wasn't quite as open as I'd expected, this is the model he used with my head being inside the body of the machine as only the shoulder needed scanning:


But at least the opening was wide enough that I wasn't touching it and I found that if I twisted my head up and around a bit, I was looking out the back of the machine so I made myself do that. A couple of times at the beginning I felt the panic creeping back in but I thought about all the comments you'd made, to help me through it.

It was a really nice centre, very comforting and relaxing and the doctor was brilliant. He showed me around, explained exactly what was going to happen, how to use the alarm if I felt uncomfortable and needed to stop, what I'd hear, how many stages it would be done in, how long each would last, etc. I felt a bit anxious because I kept remembering my last experience and I told him about that and he put his hand on my arm and said don't worry, more people than you think have that kind of reaction, that's why the call it 'the coffin'.

So I took off my bra and changed into my t-shirt (not in front of him!), hopped onto the table and lay down. I closed my eyes at times, I thought about puffy clouds and rainbows, I focused on my breathing and I went through in detail, each of my visits with my love!! It all worked. At first I felt it a bit difficult to breathe and I could tell my face was going bright red and I 'felt' the weight of the machine just above my face, but I got over it. Only once did I take a peek at how close the machine was above me and that made it worse, so I really concentrated on looking out the back of the machine at the door to the room. I pressed the alarm button only once, to move my arm because it was hurting like hell being in the position it was placed in the 'cage'. Once I was allowed to bend my elbow and rest my hand across my chest, I was good to go again.

The poor technician caught my right booby in the 'cage' when he closed it and I said ouch. I think he was more embarrassed than anything so I said don't worry, it just felt like having a mammogram, is that included? He laughed and left very quickly.

From start to finish it was an hour and 15 minutes, with just shy of an hour in the machine itself. The noise wasn't too bad but I do have a headache, more I think from a manifestation of the tension I was feeling. I get the same at the dentist, from my body being stiff as a board and trying to make my head go through the headrest to get away from him!

The doctor sat with me afterwards for a chat and he asked me some odd questions which make me wonder what he's found as the way he said it, and from what he asked, he seems more worried about my neck and back of shoulder than about the site of the actual pain (top of my arm). He's going to go over the images after the weekend in more detail and get back to my doctor and he mentioned that I may need to go back for some more images. He did say that he found a small tear and an accumulation of fluid around it, but he asked more questions about my neck and back of shoulder than anything.

Please don't let there be anything else wrong!!!!

I'm going to try and put this totally out of my mind over the weekend. Haircut, al fresco lunch and some shopping. Time with me, myself and I.