Yesterday was MRI day for me. I was booked in for a scan on an annoying and persistent lump in my lower leg. Since this is the next day now, and I often think of important things to after they have stopped being important, I decided to do a brief net search to see what an MRI is all about.
Firstly, I guessed wrong when I assumed that MRI stands for “Muscle Right Inside” (which is where the problem with my leg is). I also wasn’t even close when I guessed “Muscle research investigation” and “My Rescue from Injury”.
Apparently the people who should know better have chosen the boring title of “Magnetic Resonance Imaging” for the process. Presumably this means that the huge machine that does the MRI is called a “Magnetic Resonance Imager” and the results that come from the machine are called a “Magnetic Resonance Imagination”, but I am not 100% sure about that.
The theory goes, this monstrous machine develops radio waves that are something like 10-30,000 times stronger than the magnetism of the earth (surely that sort of thing is illegal, but we got away with it). These waves pass through my body, and sort of ruffle things at the cellular level. When the cells get themselves back together a millisecond later, the result is that they send off a message of their own (sort of like a retaliation) and the huge machine picks this up. Now the different bits of my body send back different messages and the variation forms a picture back on the doctor’s screen (I’m still a bit hazy on that bit but they assure me that it works). He can see inside my body in a way that means he can see what each bit is up to. Apparently a bone shows up differently to muscle which shows up differently to fat and most importantly for some people, different to tumors and all that bad stuff.
I was pretty excited about this because I am used to doctors taking a guess at what is happening inside me with a sort of ‘treat it and see’ attitude. Apparently, my specialist can tell exactly what is going on inside my leg (as well as what I had for breakfast, and what I thought about the old guy with the bright blue hair that I saw waiting out in the waiting room).
I understand that this MRI concept has been used since the 1980’s and in fact the particular machine I was inserted into was about ten years old, but it still seemed to work. Or at least it sounded like it was doing something. I was told that it would make loud noises but that I should stay still. At first the noises didn’t seem so loud. I think this was because they were the preliminary, warming up, pre-loud-noise, noises. Then all of a sudden this noise blasted out and scared my pants off (but of course I wasn’t wearing any by this stage). These noises went on and off for the next 40 minutes in ways sounding like Doctor Who’s Tardis was sending off error alarms. It seemed like a 1001 fog horns all blasting out of tune in some bizarre tribal composition, designed to scare any creature that ventured near (like me). In between the blasts of loud noise there was a rhythmic background noise that in comparison came to be quite pleasant. Sort of industrial, trance, dance, whatever music. I found myself floating away a bit but I was still strapped to the bench inside the machine and then all of a sudden… BLAST again. I remember trying to analyse each loud blast as it happened trying to imagine what could possibly make such a sound, but even thinking industrial machinery and space exploration didn’t give me any clues. I guess I just haven’t been that close to that sort of radio wave production before.
We are in a privileged position in time at the moment. Of course things will probably get better still but it hasn’t been that long that we have been able to accurately diagnose and treat problems like mine without unnecessary time, cost, blood and limb loss. It makes me think that with technology like this on our sides it is no wonder that we are able to continually push back whatever performance limits we think we might have. It has made me re-think what I am capable of and start to dream big dreams again about my running.
The scan was all good news, and I have been let off the runner’s death list. Apparently it is just an over-training thing, so I can deal with that.
The only bad news was when the pretty young nurse who was there with us asked if she could feel the “tumour”. The first bad bit about that was that I had been assured that it is not a tumour (or as Arnie would say in Kindergarten Cop “Its-nod-a-tumor”, but that joke would have been lost because this was a japanese hospital and only some english worked and definitely not well enough for movie quoting) and for some reason I was really annoyed that she assumed that it was. The second bad bit about that was that while we were all busy poking and prodding at the lump in my leg, I looked down and saw that the size small female hospital gown I was wearing was not covering all of the bits of my size large male body, in a way that was a bit too public for my liking, and there was little I could do about it. It was sort of embarassing, but nobody else seemed to mind, so I guess I shouldn’t worry either.
The MRI scan has now become my favourite medical process. It has saved me from more time on the bench wondering what was wrong and if it was serious. It also saved me from the blood thirsty surgeons who would have loved to cut first and then diagnose latter. If you ever get the chance I recommend you get an MRI even if it is just for the auditory experience.
Tom O’Leary is an Australian author and runner, currently living in Tsukuba Japan.
He recommends a carefully balanced mix of work, rest and play in order for runners to achieve their goals.
If you enjoyed this article there are plenty more at http://www.runningmonkeys.com
Tags: damage, injury, MRI, muscle, runner, Running, scan, sports injury, sports medicine
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