Keith, the technician, was nice and very competent. He explained everything and how it was going to go. He gave me earplugs and showed me how to put them in. I got onto a gurney sort of thing and he put a cage over my head and pillows all around it. He gave me a panic button and aimed my mirror so I could see out. And then he rolled my gurney into the big donut machine.
Thirty seconds for the first part. I held very still and counted down from 30 as the thing made funny clicking and whirring and banging sounds.
The next part was for longer. This time the machine shouted "Enough! Enough! Enough!" for the whole time, as I counted down, tried to control my shivering, and struggled to relax.
Another part sounded like the thing was yelling, "Help! Help! Help!" I kept my eyes closed and counted.
During another part, the top part of the machine said "BOMB! BOMB!" and the lower part said "bing! bing!" back and forth and back and forth. I think that part was for 3 minutes. I was working very hard to keep from trembling and I was actually trying to keep my teeth clenched so that I wouldn't grind them and move my head.
There were a couple of sections where the table actually shook with the sound and fury of these goings-on. For these, the machine stopped making intelligible sounds and just sounded like a jackhammer. It was at this point that I was wishing for a boom car. (not really! LOL!)
Finally Keith returned to me and rolled me out. I thought that I was going to be done. Then I could see that he had a syringe and a tourniquet and I lost my composure, which I'd been working so hard to maintain.
He said that he'd been ordered to do this with contrast and that meant injecting something into my vein and I sobbed. That worked! He said that he wouldn't do that. He told me that they could do some extra banging and that would maybe make up for not having to do the contrast, so I agreed to that.
Thirty more seconds... another minute and a half.. and another 2 minutes, maybe. Then he wheeled me out and I was free.
Keith showed me pictures of my own brain! He showed me my eyes and my ears and flipped through and showed me things. Nothing looked abnormal to me, but then... nothing looked normal either! LOL!
They just called and I have to go to the hospital in the morning for more blood work.
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