MRIs, let me tell you about them

I can now say affirmatively that an MRI for the brain is much more pleasant than an MRI for the upper back. It's a tennis-shoes-rattling-in-a-dry​er versus a jackhammer. I'll take the dryer, thankyouverymuch.

This all stems from an accident a year ago when a horse I was standing next to, holding his reins waiting for my friend to finish tacking up her mare, decided that he was going to accelerate across the field and went from zero to sixty in two strides. I held on for those strides and went running along with him, but I quickly realized that there was no stopping him and as he pulled away from me, the momentum I had going threw me to the ground hard. I landed on my chest with my arms tucked under me, quickly rolled to my feet and set about catching the bad boy. Which took a few minutes and earned me some stares from the others there for the hunter pace along the lines of "Newb, can't hold onto her horse" and a comment, once mounted, that I should stay that way since I obviously couldn't hold onto him. That sort of grief I can handle. Not appreciated, but says more about the issues of the one dishing it out. I felt fine, had a great ride (we must have jumped 30 jumps! That horse may not know how to stand quietly, but he's a jumping machine) and then came home from Canada and scheduled a massage because my back hurt.

Then, last October I was riding Asia when she threw me. I ignored the many warning signs that she was having a melt down and proceeded to insist that she side pass over to the gate and let me close it while mounted. Asia, who is nervous by nature, was already freaked out that the cows were not where they were supposed to be, having shown up in the freshly cut hayfield and not in the cow pasture, and that she was out by herself (I know better than to ride alone, but I broke the rule) and that she was in the woods where we'd also seen a cow and did I not know that cows aren't her thing? So, there I was leaning over to the side trying to pull the gate closed and latch it while Asia got increasingly antsy, nervous and out of sorts. I ignored all that and insisted with leg pressure and then she went up a bit and when she did, her neck impacted my head as I was leaning forward to reach the gate. I had a helmet on. I always have a helmet on. Thank goodness I did because the impact felt like a truck. When that happened, she jumped to the side away from the gate and because I wasn't sitting upright and over her, but already off balance and now knocked in the head, I slid right off and landed hard on my back.

As I lay there assessing the damage, she turned, sniffed me with the classic question every horse asks of "What are you doing down there?," and then, as I started to roll to my side to push myself up, she decided that since I'd bailed on the program and she was upset, the safety of the barn was her best option and she took off the quarter mile back there. All I could think as she took off was "please don't break those reins!" which thankfully, were still over her head and not dangling down.

So, I walked back to the barn, after closing and latching the gate, and found her there telling the others all about the big adventure. I untacked her, but didn't clean out her hooves as my back was already telling me what an idiot I was. I then went home, got in a hot shower, cleaned up and popped ibuprofen and scheduled a massage.

Massage has certainly helped, but a year later I still have a lot of pain in my upper back. It doesn't keep me from running and it doesn't hurt all the time, just when I'm holding something in my left hand that has any weight to it. About two months ago I finally called an orthopedist who prefers pain management to surgery. I'm all for that. I've been doing physical therapy for two months and am faithful about doing the exercises at home and there's been no improvement, so the doc scheduled an MRI for this morning.

It was so loud that the iPod playlist that I brought along (I decided to go with Stuff I Like More Than Other Stuff over Play Me) could barely hear over the cacophony of the MRI, but I go back in a week and I hope that the doctor will say, "Oh, now that I know more, let's apply this magic ointment and all will be well!" but somehow I don't think my wishful thinking will come to pass. However, you never know.

I asked the tech why this MRI was so different from the one I had a few years ago to be sure I didn't have a massive brain tumor causing migraines (I didn't; it's all cyclical. Aint' it grand to be female? ;) and she told me that brain MRIs are very different. It was much more pleasant. The tennis-shoe-in-the-dryer would get a nice rhythm going and be a deep, ponging sound. Not what you'd want to spend hours or days listening to, but tolerable for thirty minutes. The jackhammer noise of today was horrific. So glad when that ended.