Welcome to the Insane Asylum

This is me. Inside. This is what's trying to get out.

Sometimes, you have to wonder about the sanity of the people in charge, which, in this case, comes down to the specialist who ordered Dave’s MRI, the genius who designed the scan, and the juvenile operator of the machinery. Here you have a patient ― Dave ― whose condition is delicate, to say the least, and also specific. Given what the specialist already (thinks he’s) diagnosed, that specialist ought to know, fact!, that this patient cannot lie flat on his back at all, much less for a half hour. He should know that his patient is drowning in saliva, and that if said patient were to “aspirate” a drop of saliva into his lungs ― bingo: pneumonia, right off the bat.

So, what does the specialist do? Orders an MRI where Dave must lie flat for half an hour … and the genius in charge of the machine tells the man drowning in saliva and in real danger of aspiration pneumonia (which can be lethal), “Don’t swallow.”

What??!! You want to run around screaming, caroming off walls, bellowing about the stupidity and cruelty of medicine in general and (some; not all) doctors in particular. I’ve had a bone to pick with the diagnosing specialist in Kent Town since last Friday (this is Day 8, counting D-Day as Day One … and since that day was a century long, it counts). I have an axe to grind with him for calmly and emotionlessly handing out a death sentence, without grace, compassion or kindness. That is not clever doctoring; it’s not even good “humaning,” and I know there’s no such word, but there ought to be.

Top off that performance at the Kent Town office with the sheer genius of ordering an MRI that ― yes, fact! ― he should have known would torture the patient and possibly put him in the hospital, fighting for his life ―

I have discovered that a barbarian lives inside me. There’s a Valkyrie just beneath this delicate little five-foot-nothing exterior. She’s a savage with an axe who must be held on a tight leash lest she run amok. Suffice to say, I’m so angry, the Valkyrie is struggling to escape. I once told our GP “There’s a huge green rage monster inside me.” Well, she’s not green, but she’s quite the monster … and she has the scent of battle in her nostrils.

As I write this, those medical bas――s have reduced Dave to exhaustion, which is the worst possible thing for him. He’s sleeping it off, feeling like hell, and he said the words, “Never again.” (Oddly enough, the same words I said myself, after my last CT scan, when the same radiology clinic inflicted on me a dramatic reaction to the contrast dye needed for the test. They gave me a case of hypothermia that three-quarters killed me, and abandoned me in a corridor, in the middle of winter, dead opposite the doors, which whooshed open every 45 seconds, causing a wind-tunnel effect of icy air, blasting a victim who’d already turned blue.)

So, this was the MRI experience … 

What do I feel today? Furious. Angry. Ready to let out the Valkyrie, if it would do any good. But it won’t, and I know it won’t, so … home. Get him a warm drink. He gets into bed, trying to sleep off the effects of the torture while I rage, rage against the stupidity and witless cruelty of medicine in general and (some) doctors in particular.

There’s a saying that “A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less.” But that is not carte blanch to behave as if they’re utterly insane. It appears the inmates have taken over the asylum. And these are the people we trust with our health, to the point where they calmly, without grace, hand out what they believe to be a death sentence and then order the patient to be tortured and endangered.

Enough. No more. One round of tests remains, and I honestly don’t care what the final diagnosis is, because Dave and I have already faced the worst it can be, and the fight to not let this thing win has begun. No, I’m NOT saying motor neuron disease is currently not lethal ― and Dave almost certainly has the most severe kind of MND. But I’m reading case studies of people who were given five years and lived 20 or 25 because they managed it right … so, if Dave’s variety of MND is handled just right, the paltry amount of time these geniuses are going to quote as the rest of his life can, and will, be made into 10…

And 10 will get us through to therapies that will win more time … and more … until the cure is in his hands. It’s all about winning time. One thing doctors won’t do is help us in this quest. They’ll offer palliation, keep the patient comfortable until ― until ―

Nope. So, it’s a strict paeleo diet (I’m relearning how to cook; and more about that in my next posts), Kriya, Qigong, structured exercise, nutrition, and very soon, acupuncture. I’ve just read a clinical study on this that made my radar turn on. But no more witless cruelty, or else…

I swear it, the Valkyrie will get out. And when she does ―

The MRI Experience, Part Three: Getting the results

You wait a week for your GP to have time available to tell you, you don't actually have a  brain.. Aliens stole it years ago and replaced it with a cauliflower, and -- what's worse -- nobody noticed. (See here and here for the first two parts in this story)

Actually, you wait a week for your GP to come back from a well-earned holiday with his kids and tell you, your brain scans are totally normal, so we have zero idea of why you're dizzy and have constant headaches --

-- and here's me, in profile, looking like something out of Curse of the Mummy, proving that beauty really is skin-deep, and demonstrating how amazing it is to see the inside of your own head! This is just so fantastic...

...when's the last time you saw the inside of your head? I had a CT scan about eight years ago -- for the same problem of chronic headaches -- but the detail shown on those is little, if any, better than you'd see on an old-fashioned x-ray. Cool.

Anyway, the test results are "normal," so now the question is, where the [deleted expletive] are these symptoms coming from? In a few weeks' time, I expect I'll option the consultation with a neurologist, and we'll go from there.

For comparison purposes, here's the exterior scan, positive rather than negative, and color:

...LOL, a selfie in the car on the driveway, while I was waiting for Dave last week. No squillion-dollar equipment required. Wouldn't you know it? There's a brain behind those cucumber frames after all (thank you, Eric Morcambe). 

The MRI Experience ... Part Two: After

LOUD.

I said, !!!LOUD!!!

Can't say I wasn't warned, but I'm still surprised. The last time I was subjected to NOISE like that, I was about 19 and it was a Honda 1100RC racing bike with the throttle wound wide open, shrieking in the concrete cauldron of a workshop in Adelaide's CBD.

See Part One of this little tale to know what I'm talking about. Namely, an MRI machine --

"Dangitall, Ash, they sure make these medical scanners quiet these days."
"Yes, Captain; you should have heard them back in 2016." 

If you were hoping for something out of Star Trek, with Doctors Crusher and McCoy quietly ministering to you, you'd be somewhat ... disappointed. Why do you have to strip literally naked to get your HEAD scanned? Why are you taking off clothing that has no single trace of metal anywhere in/on it? Why is the "robe" they provide you with so tiny, it's barely adequate, necessitating one to parade in semi-public corridors, strutting stuff one would never strut in ten squillion years elsewhere? Why is a physically challenged 57 year old female required to limp around this way in the company of some form of technician who is male and 20 years old at a long stretch of the imagination, and who apparently doesn't know where to look?

So -- to misquote Queen Victoria, we are unimpressed by the process, even before we talk about the scan.

The machine is huge, white, and quarantined in a special room. You lie on a rolling board with your knees on a pillow; they trundle you into the gismo -- then the two women who operate the thing run away, so they don't have to listen to it. Just as an x-ray machine is situated in a radiation-proof room,  an MRI machine is situated in a SOUND PROOF ROOM. They give you "industrial grade" ear pads before they take to their heels and flee; and in your hand is what I can only describe as a "chicken switch," in case some poor person panics so badly they have to stop.

It rings. It knocks. Whines. Buzzes. Whirrs. Bangs. Clatters. For fifteen minutes or so, I believe, and the volume is utterly overwhelming. Not everyone is noise-sensitive, like myself. If you're partially deaf because your favorite hangout is a club at 2:00am where you can't hear yourself think, you'd probably get through this with a grin; and if you're a beach bunny, strutting your stuff and flashing those gorgeous bare legs of yours in the little robe would be a source of great joy. If you're neither of those critters ... MRI is a chore, even though it's not invasive (so long as they're not injecting you with radioactive dyes).

Bottom line: it's not invasive, just colossally aggravating. Be prepared. You're not doing this for fun, so ... what the hey?

Now we wait till next week to get the results. Such fun. (Here they are -- just posted, with pictures of the cauliflower the aliens left in my skull some time ago when they made off with my brain... Luckier than Spock, I guess; they didn't even leave him the cauliflower.)

When is somebody going to invent a medical tricorder that they point at you from across the room, and you get instant results QUIETLY.

It's dead, Jim ... whatever it is. And it's QUIET. Like this gizmo of mine.

The MRI Experience ... Part One: Before

The scan is booked for 2:30 this afternoon, and this morning I find myself ... hyper. Couldn't tell you why, because an MRI is absolutely UN-invasive, and the worst you can say for the experience is, it's noisy. They might or might not offer ear protection, so I'm taking my own. They put little kids in MRI machines, fagodsakes, and although I have a couple of phobias, I know I'm not claustrophobic, so...

...so why am I antsy? Probably because of what the scan might reveal, I suppose. For those coming in late, I've been having headaches every day since December 4 last year -- makes over seven months of daily headaches, 95% of them in the same place. Plus an assortment of other symptoms that make an MRI a good idea: make sure there ain't something in this noggin that ought to be taken care of at once, if not sooner (though, seven months after the pain began really doesn't constitute "at once").

The scan isn't what bothers me, honestly. It's the thought of the allopathic treatments to follow, if it turns out there is something in there. All the radio and chemo. Or -- as my father suffered -- the surgery. It's over 30 years since Dad had a brain tumor following lung cancer. By 2000, medicine knew enough that if someone has lung cancer, the next thing they do is scan his/her brain, because that's where cancer metastasizes next.

1985 or so, Dad was lucky -- the tumor was on the outside of his brain, left-hand-side. The surgery was simple: cut a horseshoe-shaped flap of his scalp, take out a disk of bone, lift out the tumor (described to me at the time as exactly like  "lifting an apple out of jelly"), put the disk of bone back into place with gold wire; replace the flap of skin, suture, dress, and ... done. They didn't follow up with any chemo or radio, and he lived 16 years after the surgery before succumbing to  congestive heart failure which was the result of running on one lung for 18 years.

Maybe memories of what Dad went through are making me antsy.

But I find myself hyper this morning. I've been cleaning the house for three hours, and am making myself stop, because I have a headache (duh), and don't feel too good. Exhausting myself will achieve nothing. In fact, it's a daft thing to do.

So here I am blogging about it, to thrash out what I think that I think...

And I think it's this: I usually hate allopathic treatments, drugs and whatnot. Last Christmas, a problem blew up with my gallbladder, and the best orthodox medicine could do was offer to take out my gallbladder in -- oh, a year or two, or three: there's a loooong waiting list for this surgery, since you don't count as an emergency, even though you're in pain.

I didn't want that, so I researched alternative treatments, and by our wedding anniversary dinner in March I was cured. We went out to celebrate the day, and I put the cure to the test by eating fish and chips and cheesecake. No pain; no nothing from the gallbladder. Fixed.

So I think I'm antsy about the MRI, not because I'm anxious regarding the scan itself, but because the thought of all those potential drugs and treatments is getting under my skin like glass powder. Makes your adrenalin pump.

So: calm down, Jen. Do your Taoist breathing exercises. Take some Ashwaganda.

And blog about the actual scan later, when it's been done.