Because life does continue on

[annathepiper]

I got up this morning at oh-god-no-am, the wee small hour of five, an hour at which no civilized persons should ever have to stir. solarbird made me miso soup, and I gobbled it down along with some breakfast tea and an organic peanut butter bar, and then we hastened off to Evergreen for this morning's MRI adventure.

Whoever'd done our reminder call had some screwed up information, though: they told us we were supposed to show up at 6:15. Which contradicted the piece of paper I'd been given by the nurse who'd scheduled my appointment, who'd told me to show up at 6:30. And once we got there, we couldn't figure out where the hell we were supposed to be. I'd originally thought we were supposed to go to Diagnostic Imaging, only when we got there, we found a sign that said outpatients were supposed to register at the X-Ray Film Library. So we went down there only to find two confused people there who had no idea what we were talking about, and one of them led us back to the Outpatient Registration desk. This was around 6:28, finally, and there a woman told us that yes, that was the right place. Only they were closed and wouldn't be open until 6:30. Trying not to heave an audible sigh, we waited on the bench until the lady was ready to take our paperwork.

After that, actually finding the MRI area was less annoying. A tech named Steve had me fill out a form and then change into a gown, and after giving me the rundown on what he was going to do, went at it. It took two phases, one face up and the other face down, and all told it took about 40 minutes. Not terribly annoying, and shorter than my previous experience with an MRI. I was given headphones and some classical music to listen to, though getting the headphones situated through the second pass of scans was a bit tricky. I wound up with piano music in my left ear and a whole lot of Loud around my right.

I won't know the results of the scan until Monday when I have my followup appointment with the surgeon; tomorrow I talk with the medical oncologist.

And in the meantime, I am thwarted, THWARTED I TELL YOU, in my attempt to locate a copy of rachelcaine's Midnight Alley, which is apparently taking its sweet time showing up in local bookstores. I did at least finally succeed, though, in finding Koji Suzuki's Spiral at the downtown Borders. I am also surprised to find that although I have two, count 'em, two copies of naominovik's Empire of Ivory tempting me, I'm actually not reading one yet. Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is refusing to relinquish my attention. More on this when I finish the book in a few more days.

Also, I feel an impending run of filk purchasing on iTunes coming on now that I've discovered that the Bedlam Bards' Firefly filk disc, On the Drift, is available for download and purchase there. So is the Persephone Pickers' Songs from the Verse. If I could round this out with vixyish's "Mal's Song" as well as cadhla's "Evil Laugh", I should have me quite a nice Firefly playlist to go along with the actual music from the actual show. ^_^

Tomorrow and Friday I shall be working from home to account for supremely inconveniently timed medical appointments, about which the bosses are being supportive since they know that when I say I will be working from home, I will actually be WORKING. In the evenings, assuming I can wrangle the rest of the edits out of it, I will be editing like a crazy editing thing. And I have ambitions of getting at least one query for Lament of the Dove out the door this weekend.

Miles since the 24th: 26.8
Miles out of Hobbiton: 2384.9
Miles out of Isengard: 591.9
Miles to Minas Tirith: 194.1

Comments

[lickingtoad.livejournal.com]

I love MRIs. By 'love,' I mean 'hate.'

Stay completely still.

*ding, ding, ding. Thunk, Thunk, Thunk, BANG, BANG, BANG!*

Don't you dare move! :p

[annathepiper]

This time around, at least, I didn't have an arm and shoulder healing from a bike accident, which made it infinitely easier to actually stay still. I'd forgotten until I went back to re-read my post about that that I'd actually gotten uncomfortable enough during that experience that I had to make them take me out of the can early for a break.

But yeah, I can do without the BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. I noticed that the machine said "Symphony Maestro" on the side. Who thought that was a clever name for that thing? A symphony of nothing but percussion, maybe, RIGHT BY YOUR EAR!

[firni.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I always started hearing Deep Purple when I got the brain MRIs. Did they inject you with gadolinium? Maybe the Deep Purple songs were additional side effects I received along with the allergic reaction.

[annathepiper]

Steve the Tech Guy shot me up with something he simply referred to as 'contrast'. I don't know if that's the same stuff! He said I wouldn't feel anything from it, and I didn't, except that it was cold when it started coming through the IV. Bleah.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

The U. Bookstore has Midnight Alley, fyi -- I picked it up on Tuesday. They'll have it shelved in science fiction/fantasy, not YA.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I suspected they would; they're where I got the first two Morganville books. I just have to go a little out of my way to get over there. If the book doesn't show up at my usual haunts soon, I'll definitely swing over there and get it, probably along with another hardback Doctor Who. Thanks for the tip! And, *hugs*. :)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Lucky you, I only got a pair of industrial grade earplugs.

The staying still and the sheer boredom of it all were the hard parts...

[annathepiper]

Staying still I don't find so much a problem, or at least I didn't this time around. It's a lot less annoying if I don't, say, have a broken arm or something.

And I think, perhaps due to being up at an ungodly hour of the morning, I was way more in danger of falling asleep than I was of being bored. Even despite the BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG of it all.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* It would've been too funny if you had, because you'd have been the second in as many days. :) cadhla just had an MRI too (herniated disc, ouch) and *did* fall asleep, much to the amusement of the medicos (and her own delight; she figured the claustrophobia might get her, but once she figured out she could scoot out of the thing if she really had to, and that she could just close her eyes and ignore the fact that the ceiling was four inches from her nose, "it was all candy and cake").

What gets me is *why* the thing is so noisy. All the other modern hot-rod electronics I've ever seen, the only loud parts have been the cooling systems.

(reads) Aha. They're changing the magnetic gradient so fast that the coil itself is shifting minutely and creaking as it does so... only at *very* high speed, so a soft groan becomes a loud bang.

Newer models will have active noise cancellation, just like the headset you were wearing, only in the coil itself. That's gonna be wild...

[annathepiper]

I've started reading cadhla's journal, and have seen her posts over the last couple of days about her medical adventures, yeah. It seems like it's the year for it! Marf!

I was indeed wondering why MRI machines are so damned loud. Nice to know they're making advances that'll quiet 'em down.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Seanan is a freak... in the most loveable kind of way. I remember one night at Wayward vixyish told the story of how she was sick one day, and on chat with Seanan, and Vix makes some crack about "you know if I die of this you'll have to tell the world what happened," and the little typing light went on in her IM window, and kept going, and going, and Vix types in a panic, YOU'RE DOING IT NOW AREN'T YOU?!?!

And of course she was (http://seananmcguire.com/songbook.php?id=140)...

And Vix, long since recovered, proceeds to sing the joke on herself. :)

(I *love* that song... it totally captures Seanan's breezy love affair with the macabre... I don't know why I like the stuff, I normally can't stand horror, but when Seanan does it, it's so much *fun*... :)

[annathepiper]

Hee! I'll look forward to hearing that performed at some point. :)

[prairie-kittin.livejournal.com]

ABE has Midnight Alley:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Midnight+Alley&x=55&y=17

[annathepiper]

Thanks! I don't think I'll have trouble finding it at the local bookstores, just need to check back at the right time. (In fact, I will be leaving shortly to go out and run errands and among other things, check the nearest bookstore again to see if they have it yet--they had the earlier ones, just not the new one yet.) But I appreciate the link. :)