Mom’s Abdomen MRI with Contrast
Both my parents have health issues now. I guess it’s part of the life.
My mom has gone to the doctors twice, did two blood tests, one mammogram and one abdomen MRI with contrast within the past 3 weeks. It’s so unsettling.
Doctor visits are normal, I found a highly rated Chinese-speaking doctor near China town, so my mom feels more comfortable communicating, rather than me translating highly technical medical terms. Findings from blood test was not comforting, doctor requested a second blood test 2 days later, just in case something went wrong in the first test. Second test result came back, even worse than first test! Some tumor maker was too high. I know my mom’s heart was collapsing. My dad, in denial. He would not say anything, like the usual him, but keep the same routine every day.
Dreaded, we got up super early in the morning, headed towards the MRI location at 6 am. In my small Sentra, all three of us were quiet, the whole drive, for one solid hour. I put on a YouTube video about Joe Cross, who basically cured himself on auto-immune issues by juicing, which doctors told him there was no cure. I did not really play this video to prepare my mom. I was watching some of his videos and others’ about juicing myself lately. It was just on my phone. Once it started playing, I started listening. I could feel my mom was trying to listen as well, my dad, sitting in the back seat, had his arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed, head tiled back. I couldn’t really tell if he was bored or was in his “whatever” mode towards the video.
It was a long drive, we hit some traffic, not crazy lot. But man, I forgot how much I hated driving during rush hour but had no choice but sitting through it. That’s one of the things I did not really miss from those “working mom” days. As I was counting my blessings, listening to the juicing videos and getting pumped up, we arrived at the MRI location.
We were the first ones there at 7 am. Front desk lady barely put her purse down and sat down when we walked in. I signed her in quickly and looked around. Big waiting room, very nicely decorated, comfortable seating. First time, I noticed over sized chairs in any waiting area, about 1.5 times as wide as regular chairs in every corner of the sitting area. I couldn’t help but thought, these are for over weight people, who need to be on juicing diet! After all, I lost 4 lbs in 2 days of juicing. Shocking, I know! And I didn’t even feel hungry! We waited, still in silence. We could not hear anything, except the fainted news report on TV and everyone’s breathing. My mom was hugging her home-made purse, my dad had his arms crossed still.
The paramedic came out, in his blue scrub. He picked up a piece of paper, opened his mouth and paused, with a troubled face. I quickly said, that’s my mom, and taught him how to pronounce her name. He was super nice and let me accompany her and translate as needed. He asked if she was nervous. I said not really, about MRI, but about the reason why we are here in the first place. He looked at the doctor’s order and said, yeah I can see that. Well, good luck!
She changed into the cape, got her blood sample taken to test if her kidney is allergic to the dye, and we went into the MRI room. She laid down on the bed, three nurses came in. One main nurse in blue scrub put a blanket on my mom’s stomach, saying it’s really cold in here. Put this on, it will keep you a bit warmer. The other two nurses were in maroon scrubs, I couldn’t help but notice those “MD Anderson Cancer” logo on their chest, with a line through the word “Cancer”. My mind whispered in my own head, that’s right, we will cross out cancer! It doesn’t exist here, not in my mom. The nurses were super nice. They offered me a blanket too, but I was more nervous for my mom. I said no to the blanket, almost feel like I said no because I didn’t want my mom to think I was anywhere near being uncomfortable. There she was, laying on the bed, with both arms above her head, and an IV in her left arm, dangling, waiting for the blood test result before hooking up to the dye. I felt my heart cringe, and chills went up my spine. I am glad right after blood draw, I talked about the whole MRI process with her. I had a couple, for my knee and spine. She knows roughly what’s happening. The nurses adjusted her location and position, put another half cage sort of frame on her abdomen, topped with another blanket. Ear buds went in, then slowly, she was slid into the chamber. All the nurses reassured I was OK before leaving the room. I sat down in a chair in the corner of the room. MRI machine started making noises, I told her when to take in a deep breath, hold and relax, according to the prompt of the machine. After a couple of times, she got the hang of it. My mom was doing a great job inhaling, holding her breath and holding still. I found myself inhaling and holding breath with her, every single time. She probably had 30 sessions of holding breaths. Most holdings were about 20 seconds or less, the last 2 sessions were 47 seconds long. I thought she would not be able to do it, because only I could see how long the holding will be, from where I was sitting, all she knew was when to inhale and when to hold, she had no idea how long each hold had to be. I was nervous for her, hoping she would be able to make it and hold still. Otherwise the images would be blurry and have to be retaken.
Amazingly, my mom did it. Images came out very clear. I gave it an attempt to read the images. I know what they are, and which cross section of her body each image was showing, but I had no idea what to look for.. images will be sent to her doctor’s office and results would be available by early next week at the latest.
My parents have been through way too much, they are good people, sweet, kind, and trusting. Please keep my mother in your thoughts.
