MRI

February 27, right after Surgery consultation 

Dr Tittensor ordered an MRI for me. At first I wasn't sure why that was needed, so this is what I found:

  • MRI can provide a more detailed view of the breast tissue than mammograms or ultrasounds, allowing doctors to determine the size and location of the tumor, and if it has spread to other areas of the breast or the chest wall.
  • It can also help determine if the cancer is in more than one quadrant of the breast or if the nipple or skin is involved.
Ok. I guess that's why. They want to know if there's more there that they couldn't see. So I went for the MRI right after the appointment with Dr Tittensor. This would help to confirm whether we'd made the right call about a double mastectomy.

The MRI itself was rather uncomfortable. They hooked me up to an IV because they wanted to use contrast. Then in order to get into the MRI machine, I had to lay on my stomach on a table-like device that had two square holes cut out for each of my breasts to hang down through. I had to rest my breast bone on a bar and my face was squished onto a device that was supposed to hold it straight but ended up squishing my nose against the lower part of the table. Because I'm thin right now, the bar at my breastbone area actually felt like it was pressing right into the bone and was kind of painful. My face was pressed down, both my right and left arms were raised above my head resting on the table. In my right hand he placed a device similar to a panic button that I could press if I was really in trouble.. going to the fact that I wasn't able to speak even if I needed to. In the left hand I had to hold the cord of my IV so it wouldn't get tangled in the machine as the table moved me backwards into the MRI tube. There I lay, in a very uncomfortable and awkward Superman position unable to move and told not to do so at the same time. Ear plugs were placed in my ears but that did very little to dampen the loud jarring noise of the MRI machine. It's amazing people don't walk out of those things with hearing damage. Boy was I grateful to have that over with when it was finished 30 minutes later! Felt like much longer than that.

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