MRI Bangers

Week 8 A.D.

Monday was MRI DAY. It was also the day before Jillian’s sixteenth birthday. I always decorate the kitchen for the kids the night before their birthday, so they can feel like they woke up to a birthday party, but I had to go a little extra this year. It was her Sweet Sixteen!

I was up late Sunday night scouring the interwebs for anything Sweet Sixteen. With my cancer preoccupation, I missed my Amazon Prime window to get the good themed supplies delivered in time. I ended up finding balloons at Michael’s and some decorations at Target that I could order for pickup on Monday. There was a Dollar Tree next to the Target where I could grab a couple more things. And I’d stop at Costco to pick up flowers – I thought I had seen a dozen baby pink roses the last time I shopped there. Lots to do Monday!

Birthday mornings have to start off with some kind of breakfast. If I know my kid, it’s donuts. I wanted to do something we hadn’t done before, so no ordinary donuts would work. I ordered her “The Big Donut” from Donut King, a family fave. I filled out the order form and clicked submit with a prayer. They require 48 hours and I was running on less than 24. Certainly they wouldn’t have the heart to turn down a giant donut order with the phrase “Happy Sixteenth Birthday!” on it in hot pink letters, filled with various jellies, would they?

They didn’t. Bless you Donut King.

Zach took me to my MRI. He coached me through the process since he’s had a million and one of them for his brain tumor. We joked that we were getting his & hers MRIs because his annual scan was the next very day.

When I had gone in to the main campus to get labs drawn the previous week, I noticed all staff was wearing masks, so I wasn’t surprised to see staff at the MRI office wearing them too. Influenza A was rampant and KU had mandated masks for staff to prevent more staff from getting sick, as they’ve been short-staffed due to the virus. I didn’t see a sign about patients needing to wear them nor did I see a box of masks sitting out, so I went without. The more I thought about it, the more I wished I had thought to bring my own. I didn’t want to get sick and risk delaying any appointments or surgery.

My name was called about as quickly as I sat down. I followed the Tech into the prep room, signed my consent form and took a Valium the surgeon had described for just this moment. I was freaking nervous. Terrified. Shaking. I’ve never taken Valium before and prayed that sucker would kick in ASAP.

I undressed in the tiny prep room and put on the provided scrubs: oversized bright blue pants and a baggy, purple kimono style shirt. I walked over to the I.V. room and sat in the chair to wait for that nasty stick.

I started to worry that a panic attack was creeping up. I tried breathing, but it wasn’t working. Then there they were. My old friend, the calming lavender stickers. The same ones the radiology nurse had put on my kimono at my biopsy. I took the liberty of snatching one of those bad boys up and took a long, deep breath of it in.

“Please work! Pill or patch, I don’t care, just kick in. Calm the fuck down!” I thought to myself. The problem was that I couldn’t take my water bottle with me any further after this part. I know it sounds weird, but sipping ice cold water helps to calm me down. I think it’s a sensory thing. The ice cold sensation on my teeth and tongue kind of resets my brain, like it’s snapping me out of panic mode, even if just for a moment.

Once the I.V. was in, we walked to the MRI room. There were three or four techs in the room I entered, sitting behind screens and a window. There, through the window, was the MRI machine. The tube of horrors.

I had to climb onto a step-stool then get on all fours on the…table I guess? Feet toward the machine, head furthest from it. As I lowered down onto the table, I saw that it was short. Too short for my whole body. There was an opening, with a bar going through the center of it and a towel draped over it. There was a head cushion reminiscent to the ones on a massage table at the end of the bar. In front of the head cushion was a plastic platform with what looked like hand grips on the end. The techs helped lower me onto the table contraption. The table only went up to my lowest ribs so my entire sternum rested directly on the towel covered bar—breasts spread apart, hanging down over both sides of the bar. My face rested down, into the head cushion, where I saw a small rectangular opening. Supposedly there were some little angled mirrors so that I could see out into the room through the window where the techs were. Honestly I saw nothing a mostly obstructed window about four inches wide. To prevent panic, I thought it’d be best to not look and keep my eyes closed. My arms shot out forward in a flying Superman pose, with my hands resting over the grips at the end of the platform. One of the techs placed a rubbery ball in my left hand.

“Ok, we’re going to walk out and get you into the machine. Be as still as you can. We’ll talk to you through the speaker,” said the tech. “You ready?”

“Yep.”

They put on headphones before they left and blasted Billy Joel through the speakers. “Piano Man” played loudly. Then a louder voice broke through.

“Are you comfortable?” the tech asked. “This is probably the most uncomfortable MRI a person could get, so do your best to get situated. You’ll be in this position for about twenty minutes.”

“Not comfortable at all, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that,” I said.

I didn’t feel myself move into the machine, but I heard the noise it made, so I figured that’s what it was. The noise got louder and soon, I regretted agreeing to the Billy Joel station. My body stiffened and after about ten minutes I began to feel my shoulder muscles quivering. All of the noise was over-stimulating. Over stimulation is one of my panic attack triggers. That fucking Valium still hadn’t done anything of note for me. I should’ve taken both of them, as the surgeon instructed. I just get so nervous about meds like that. I began squeezing the rubber ball-thing they placed in my left hand with my thumb.

“How are you doing in there!? You pushed the button. Do we need you need to get out for a short break?” she asked loudly from my headphones.

“Oh, whoops. I didn’t know that was the button.” I murmured, through the head cushion hole. “No, I’m good. Let‘s just get this over with.”

About two minutes later, I felt the dye enter my body through the I.V. The icy feeling fluid slid through my veins and rushed into my chest and up to my head. It was like breathing in menthol. Not. My. Favorite. Another ten minutes later, it was over. I crawled off the table. Got my I.V. out, bandage on, and headed to my dressing room. I made it to the lobby where I saw Zach with a mask on.

Before going home, we stopped at the donut shop and picked up Jillian’s giant donut. Then stopped at Target to pick up my order. As we waited in line, my phone got a notification from My Chart.

Damn. That was fast.

I hurried to open the notification and read the results.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” I blurted. “Am I reading this right? It says there are two more lesions.”

Yep. The original spot is actually 1.3cm, not .7cm. There is another one behind it that is .7cm. And the third spot is toward the opposite side of the breast and is also 1.3cm. I’ve had 3 spots of cancer this whole time. NONE of which were caught in three different mammograms. Only one of which was caught in five different ultrasounds.

Tears welled up. The cashier called to us. I just handed my phone to Zach and turned around to cover my eyes. We walked out another minute or so later with Jillian’s birthday party supplies. I let myself cry for a total of 3 minutes, but had to suck it up because I had sweet sixteen prep to do. We walked a few more feet over to Dollar Tree, grabbed the few things we needed, and headed home.

I was quiet on the drive home. I did a bit of work when I got home, but then lied down on the couch, where Zach joined me, and slept for a couple hours. I sat on the couch curled up in blankets and didn’t leave that spot the rest of the night.

The kids knew something was up, but didn’t ask me. I wasn’t ready to tell them yet, that mom has more cancer than we thought. Frankly, I wouldn’t know what to say if they asked questions. I hadn’t even talked to my surgeon yet to understand what this means. I just know there’s more and that means I no longer have a choice of the surgery type. My only option is a mastectomy. It felt like I just got robbed of my choice.

Before bed, it dawned on me that I hadn’t yet given Jillian her “day 15” gift for her sweet sixteen countdown. I don’t know what to exactly did it to me, but as soon as I walked into my closet, I broke down. Ugly crying, no, sobbing. Couldn’t breathe kind of breakdown. Zach came and found me, picked me up off the floor and held me as I cried in his chest. I was scared and furious that now my choice was gone.

He helped me decorate the kitchen, the staircase, and Jillian’s door that night. It’s still her big milestone birthday and I’m not going to let cancer steal that joy away.

The donut was delicious. I took her to do her driving test and get her license at lunch, and when she got home from school her sixteenth and final gift was presented to her: keys to my old white Ford Explorer. It may have 200k miles & a cracked windshield, but it’s her first car. We handed her the keys and walked her outside where old “Betty White” as sitting in the drive way with a hot pink bow on the hood.

The rest of the week was a fog. Thankfully I had my first therapy appointment on Friday. We covered A LOT of ground in our first meeting. From my anxiety and panic attacks, to the origins of my my hospital and medicine anxiety, the last stressful 7 years with way to much death and serious family medical issues, and early memories of my grandmother’s breast cancer journey.

We also talked about the anger I had that my choice was taken away. But what I walked out with, was a reframing of the situation. Perhaps, nothing was taken away. I had wanted clarity and confidence in my early decision to do a mastectomy. It may not be the way in which I wanted clarity, but in fact, my decision had become very clear. And I was confident that a mastectomy was the right thing to do for my treatment.

My oldest sister and niece surprised us with a visit on Saturday. She and Jillian are besties, so it was a belated birthday get together. Plus, my sis made good on her promise to sew drain pockets into some new button down pajamas. She also surprised me with the coolest knitted blanket of roses. And Reyna being Reyna, she hid a couple of boobies in there. lol!

She reminds me that humor is necessary throughout this journey. And so when I came across an Instagram reel about MRI bangers. I finally cried…from laughter.