Still as stone and breathing deeply

The next two assessments were the MRI scan, always a challenge, and the Lung Function Tests. You don’t need to fly to make your ears pop.

The MRI was nowhere near as stressful as last year. For a start there was no waiting around. A few minutes after I arrived I was called through and the cannula was put in straight away, so I didn’t feel anywhere near as ill as it had made me feel last time. It was still slightly uncomfortable but that goes with the territory. And even better, I then went through for the scan. The hardest part of an MRI is lying dead still for almost an hour! That’s not just a turn of phrase; dead still is how you need to be for the scan to take a clear picture.

I was all right for the first half of the scan but towards the end I started to fail. “Don’t worry about it”, the radiologist said just before I left. “I wasn’t going to”, I thought.

She slid me out of the scanner halfway through to add the contrast dye through the cannula. “It’ll feel cold as it goes in”, she warned me. “Yes it does”, I replied. “Can I have a blanket too?”

The cannula was removed within a few minutes of the scan finishing, but I didn’t put enough pressure on it and when I looked later, it had bled, leaving a bruise. “Oh flip!” I thought. Usually I’m really good and I never bruise after a blood test. Oh well.

I hate the Lung Function Tests. All the breathing… in, out, keep going, hold, now as fast as you can. That’s what makes your ears pop. Breathing out quickly. I can only do so if I pretend I’m blowing out birthday cake candles. I had to do each test three or four times before she was satisfied that I had done my best. She gave me a few minutes rest between tests, but even so, I was exhausted by the time they had finished. Thank goodness there’s another year before I need to do them again.