Speed MRI

Brain cancer is...

...speed scanned!

No results yet (post time:  5:45 p.m.), but today's MRI experience was speedy and smooth.  They took Darrell in early, they scanned him quickly, and they burned the CD in less than five minutes.  We were home in just over an hour. Amazing. 

Also amazing:  Darrell was able to stifle a coughing spell during the scan.  That's an important accomplishment because (a) his head was bolted to the table so movement would be difficult, and (b) if he needed to cough or otherwise move, they would have needed to rescan to replace the blurry images.

The most painful part of the scan experience for Darrell was drinking the plain (gasp!), warm (eek!) bottled water post scan:

And the bottle, as you see, was huge! Poor, poor Darrell.  

Thank goodness diet Coke is also wet.

Well done, Darrell!

We hope to post tomorrow with the radiologist's initial impressions.

MRI Fun Facts

• Thus far, Darrell always has two MRI's:  One without contrast and one with contrast.
• The contrast is a substance injected into an IV in Darrell's arm after the tech completes the first scan.
• The contrast makes some things like tumors and blood vessels more visible, which allows for more accurate interpretation. (Click here for a helpful website on MRIs with contrast.)
• The contrast contains gadolinium, a rare earth metal.  It also contains "chelating" materials to which the gadolinium bonds in order to render it non-toxic while allowing it to maintain its contrast properties.
• Apparently only about 1 in 3 MRI's uses contrast.
• Drinking plenty of fluids for a couple days post MRI allows Darrell's body to flush the contrast out of his system, through his kidneys.