Chew and Swallow ... and say "Cheese"

It’s kind of like a coffin. Or what I would imagine a coffin would feel like. I know, weird as it may sound, I don’t try and spend too much of my free time laying around in coffins. But the MRI machine is close to what I would imagine one would feel like. The sides and front of the machine are insanely close to your body and I can understand why it freaks claustrophobic people out. I had had an MRI once before, a few years ago, so I knew what to expect. This time, unlike my previous experience, I was offered the chance to listen to some music while the MRI examination took place. They gave me a pair of headphones and offered me a choice of music to help drown out the noise of the machine. The nurse asked me what kind of music I liked and what I wanted to listen to during the procedure. I wasn’t sure and asked what kind of music was available. She said, “We have Blues, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Classical, Alternative…” I wasn’t sure what I felt like listening to so I went with what I assumed was a safe bet and said Alternative. At the last moment as I was being fed into the tube, I had a fear that it would be cheesy, mainstream alternative music like Creed or Fallout Boy or Linkin Park. And sure enough, it was. I was on my back and looking up at the rounded roof of the machine six inches from my face as the sweet dulcet tunes of Blink-182 began. “Aw (bleep)” I said under my breath. It wasn’t too soon after the music started that the cacophony of the MRI began. CHUNGA CHUNGA CHUNGA CHUNGA - tweep tweep tweep tweep - CHUNGA CHUNGA CHUNGA CHUNGA. After awhile I began focusing on the bangs and blips of the MRI to drown out the music being fed to me by the headphones. It was a mighty battle as to what least offensive noise would win out. In the end, I gave up and just took a nap.

With the MRI done and waiting to have my follow up with Dr. Mackay, I went back to my speech language pathologist for my Barium Swallow. I went into my speech pathologist’s (Patty‘s) office and was introduced to a whole new team of doctors and radiologists. Then I was escorted to a new section of the hospital and presented with a tray of soft foods. Bread, pudding, applesauce, etc. They placed an X-ray machine next to my head, covered my nether regions with a lead blanket, and then asked me to begin eating. The barium liquid that my food was dipped in or mixed into was pretty bland and kind of had a vanilla flavor. I almost didn’t even notice it except the fact that all the food had a weird milky white hue. While I was being given directions from the doctors who were standing behind a protective wall, I first began to notice something different about my swallowing. It had suddenly become easier to swallow and it felt better than it had in weeks and weeks. I thought to myself “This is great. I have a chance to show these people what is wrong with me and my throat decides to start functioning properly.” After working my way through the applesauce and pudding, I was asked to describe my problems I was having so that they could try and look for any complications. I guess they weren’t seeing any on their x-ray machine. I tried my best to describe my difficulties. How it felt like my throat would close and not allow any food to go down it. Or how the food would try to go back up my nose whenever I swallowed. Or how I had developed a little hiccup every time I swallowed a bite that was too big. They hadn’t seen anything yet of concern so they decided to have me swallow food that was bigger and might pose more trouble while swallowing. So I moved onto the bread. And thankfully this seemed to work as I immediately developed my problems again. “Whew,“ I thought, “You see? I’m not crazy.“ My hiccup was back and as I swallowed I had to stop and bring the food back up before swallowing again. I was actually thankful that the problems returned. After the bread, they were happy with the results obtained and came out from their protective lair to show me the video of me swallowing on a little monitor in the room. It was pretty cool to see an x-rayed image of my head as I chewed a bunch of food that illuminated on the screen. I saw my muscles working and the food moving around to the back of my throat and my little hiccups helping the food go down. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to really diagnose a problem but said they had a good baseline to refer back to if my problem got any worse. And that was all. They said thank you, have a good day, and I left.

I met with Dr. Mackay later that week to review my MRI. The images are pretty amazing as you get to see your brains and all that stuff right there in front of you. I was thankful that there were brains to see and they were pretty big if I do say so myself. New nickname - "Big Brains" Knudson. Dr. Mackay said that the images did not clearly show any signs of MS, multiple sclerosis, but that there were some blurry areas of concern. He didn’t like the quality of the images and asked me to get another MRI done so that he could say with more certainty that it wasn’t MS. Luckily for me, the lab downstairs had an opening that afternoon and I was able to get an MRI that same day. I walked into the MRI examination room with the confidence of a man having done this before. It was almost becoming commonplace. I laid down on my back and prepared myself for the coffin. I was handed the headphones and without even being asked I said “Classical, please.”