Tuesday, October 31, 2006

MRI on Halloween

I went to Milford Regional Medical Center for my scheduled MRI tonight. It was smooth and uneventful. Pre-registration worked via the phone with a couple of forms to sign upon arrival. The only "surprise" occurred as the technician and I walked down the corridor to the unit and we went out an exit door. It did say for exit only, alarm will sound but she seemed quite confident in what she was doing and indeed it was a portable unit pulled up alongside the building. The space between the unit and building was heavily draped so she was joking that they should have decorated it for the evening, it did seem like a "haunted house".
 
Laying down, knee propped for a good picture, headphones on with piped in music, also heavily cushioned to drown out the noise of the unit itself. It does make some funky sounds. So funky, briefly talking with the other technician as I was leaving, she acknowledged that a couple of teens like the sounds so much that they wanted to come in to do some recording. She had to explain to them, that due to the magnetic field generated, they would not be able to record it. They were disappointed. I can see why. It was some funky sounds.
 
I wonder if they are necessary to generate the field, or some sort of signal noise to provide assurance that the machine is working? I recall hearing about a vacuum company that tried introducing a quiet vacuum and although they could prove that it did pick up more dirt and material it did not market test well. Introducing some noise back into the unit improved its sales. As if it wasn't working unless it made some noise to show it was working.
 
Next visit to the doctor is Monday. As I was walking out the technician said that the images were already posted to the web and he could view as soon as he wanted to. Ah, the wonders of technology. Now, let's figure out what is wrong with this knee!
 
 
Technorati Tags : , , , , ,
 
Powered By Qumana