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At this appointment, I was going to an area I’d never been before – The North West Heart Centre. Ridiculous directions from the main entrance sent you down the yellow route, turning various corners, and eventually sending me up some stairs… only for another direction to send me back to them them to first check in at the outpatients area. Which didn’t seem to exist. However, there was an Information desk which sent me back outside, through a different door, to walk round as it’s apparently quicker, since the alternative was to walk around a number of upstairs corridors and go all around the houses. Once I’d finally arrived in the right place, I had to go down some stairs to a waiting area with other people, which put me in mind of the 1972 horror movie, Tales From The Crypt, where five people meet up, after having got lost down there, and are brought together by the Crypt Keeper (played by the late, great Sir Ralph Richardson). Unfortunately, for them, they are all dead, and head off to the gates of hell. For me, I was already there, but just happened to still be alive.
I was ushered in the direction of a changing room where my valuables could be locked away, and I was to put on a gown. I assumed they would want me in my altogether, so put the gown on back to front (as is usually the way in hospitals), but still had my socks on as the floor was cold – and I don’t like walking around barefoot. Yes, ladies, I am not into any kind of foot fetish!
At that point, I had a last ‘google’ on my phone to see if I was allowed to wear underwear while inside an MRI scanner and it seemed that I was. Then, the doctor came in to discuss a few things, and I asked my clothing question. Given how he said I needed to turn the gown the right way round, so they could attach ECG pads to my skin, pants would certainly be a necessity, since I don’t want my old chap to be flapping about while I was subjected to whatever happens in one of these machines.
 
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About the MRI Scanner appointment itself, and once I’d been invited in to the side room to have bloods taken via a needle plunged into a vein – and kudos to the doctor for doing this on the first go, since I usually don’t have good veins and when I go for my annual hypertension review, it takes the nurse forever to find one, and since I take warfarin, which thins the blood, I end up with a huge bruise. It’s no-one’s fault, it’s just one of those things and an occupational hazard… if having a crap heart was an occupation.
Since the scanning may take 50 minutes or so – the time-frame I was given, although it must’ve been just over an hour, given the time when I looked at my watch on going back to the changing room – I figured a trip to the loo would be an idea even though I didn’t really need it. Still, you don’t want to be having to come out of the tube and then go back in, so if you are having one of these scans, then it’s best just to go and point Percy at the porcelain or, for women, whatever you call your genitals.
While lying on the machine, awaiting to go in, I had some sort of guard placed on my chest, and was strapped to the table so that I could not wriggle free. Good job this wasn’t one of those films where you’re held against your will in a mental institution, not knowing what’s going on. And when I went into the machine initially, I felt a little claustrophobic, so they stopped very briefly, the continued to see how I went. Once I got to the other end, I could look up and out of the back end of the machine and see normality again, so it wasn’t too bad in that respect.
The aforementioned needle was left in so that a contrast agent called Gadavist was applied. I know it sounds like a character in Game of Thrones, but it’s actually a liquid which sometimes makes you feel warm inside, and sometimes cold. Either way, you can’t wait for it all to be over, especially when having to hold my breath for a long time and/or frequently, and while the experience inside the machine was amusing early on, as it all dragged a bit, I got itches and watering eyes, due to a cold, all of which I could do nothing about.
I was warned about the amount of noise that the machine would make, although most of that seems to come from all the construction just outside the building. They also had to put some patches on my chest for the ECG tabs to stick on, which required shaving of small areas of my chest. That still itches now 🙁
There was a bit of amusement when the machine made noises, as whatever passed through my bodies made it feel like someone had made my hair stand on end with static electricity. When I commented on it, the doctor said something to describe it, but which has escaped my thought processes. If/when I remember, I shall add it in here.
In lieu of any music, they had some beating sound going on in the background which was the right pace for Bloodhound Gang‘s one-hit-wonder, The Bad Touch – thus putting me off concentrating on breathing out at times, and so that is the song with which I will leave you.
Bloodhound Gang – The Bad Touch
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.