Trying to sleep

My first night without the cast was not exactly sleep-filled. I feel like I’ve been sent back in time to when I first had the cast, except without the bashing myself in the head every time I move. But the constant ache has returned.

So, naturally, I didn’t wake up all refreshed this morning to venture out for the MRI scan on my thumb. Still, I managed to catch a few winks during the walk to the station as well as a good solid half hour waiting at Aldershot for the connecting train.

I have to say that the bus/train combo works a lot better with less time waiting. Next time (two weeks) this is definitely the way to go.

Anyway, as it was I managed to reach the Scanning Centre with about five minutes to spare. I duly filled out the required long and detailed form and was collected by a technician (who did introduce herself but whose name I immediately forgot). She went through the form then had me dump all of my personal belongings and any metal objects in a locker, including my belt. We then entered the scanner room.

Talk about science fiction! Everything is white, glaringly so (it actually reminded me of Claire’s white Mercedes which is impossibly white) and dominating the room is this big doughnut with a bed sticking out of it. A second technician had me lie down on my stomach with my arm stretched out in front of me.

She then started clamping my wrist down in a device which, apart from it’s colour, resembled the sort of medieval torture device used for extracting confessions. It even had big threads sticking out of the top, ready for the screws to be applied, I guess. I need to add that this was all merely fancy as it didn’t hurt a bit and was quite comfortable with all the padding she added.

I was told the machine was quite noisy and was given a pair of headphones and a bulb to squeeze in the unlikely case of distress. The bulb was attached to a long plastic tube leading to the technician’s room rather than a calming tulip bulb or one of those executive stress balls.

And, without further ado, the technician bid me a fond adieu and left me alone.

I felt the bed moving into the giant doughnut and there was a sense of being inside something. As I was lying on my stomach and I was very tired, I actually had my eyes closed so most of what I experienced was sensed rather than seen. The one thing that sticks out most in my mind is the noise.

The Royal College of Radiologists has a very helpful site which has (as well as an entire page on the MRI experience) a sound file, letting prospective patients know what it’s like. I listened to it last night. If you want to hear it, it is here.

Well, I’m here to say that’s bollocks! They take about five images which requires five bursts of sound with quiet moments in between (like long track changes on an album). The first sounds like the link above but then things step up a gear. And it continues stepping up until the final one sounds like a jack hammer orchestra playing techno about three feet away.

To be fair, it wasn’t too bad because it had quite a funky beat and it wasn’t THAT loud – I might have exaggerated a bit. What I want to know is why the sounds change and why such a space age, clearly alien technological artefact-based piece of wizardry, makes any noise at all? It makes it impossible to sleep. In the unlikely event that a radiologist ever reads this, perhaps I may be enlightened.

All the while the technician whose name I forgot could be heard telling me what was happening and for what duration: “This burst will last for 3 minutes.” and so on. I was supposed to be able to hear her through the headphones but, as far as I could tell, they didn’t work. I was vaguely aware of her voice somewhere behind me, sneaking through the glass barrier that separated us. Not that I was bothered. I just wanted to sleep and it was just another annoying thing preventing it.

After less than half an hour I was on my way out of the hospital having been informed that they’d “…got some great pictures…” of my wrist. I now have to wait for my next visit for the thumb prognosis.

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Back at home, I decided to try capturing some more birds using my new lens. I loaded the bird table with feed and took about 30 continuous shots of a bunch of food frenzied wood pigeons. There was only a couple of good ones. This is one:

Free lunch

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After lunch we went to the park for a walk and I was struck by how bleak it all suddenly looks. It’s like autumn was squeezed into about a week and we’ve moved rapidly on to winter. Here’s the Avenue of Trees:

Bleak

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A while ago, Mirinda had to go up to Nottingham for work. She wasn’t that enthused about the place. Today I started reading a biography of Alfred the Great by Benjamin Merkle, which is neither here nor there except for this short piece I thought I’d quote…just for Mirinda:

At that time, more than three centuries before the time of Robin Hood, the Anglo-Saxon name of Nottingham was Snotengaham, apparently named after an earlier chieftain named Snot. Luckily for the modern-day residents of the city, the ‘S’ was eventually dropped from the name, and so, rather than Snottingham, the city is now called Nottingham.