A medical adventure: the beginning

MRI machines make a peculiar sort of layered whirring noise, both when one is in them and one is waiting to be in one. At other times too, I should think, but I did not stick around for those.

First, I was waiting there. The cheery woman took my forms, checked over the sundry details, sat me in the room with the lockers in it and explained about what to do with the key and so on. I suppose I needed to wait until the previous patient’s scans were complete. It was a slightly nervous wait in a small room, with large, off-white cabinets on either side of me, the large surface of the doors broken up only by plastic badges reading SIEMENS in that revolting green they use. My foot’s smarting a bit. I have walked for over an hour today, I calculate, more than I have done for a while even if it was mainly in trainers. After I do not know how long, my phone being both off and in the locker, I get called in.

At the beginning of last December I was unwise enough to wear hard shoes on hard ground. This is normally fine, though in the past I have had achy feet from doing this for too long. This time is not ‘fine’. My left foot, one of the metatarsals in fact, is very slightly achy after wearing those shoes on the Monday. I choose to ignore it, I am unfit and the left leg is the weaker anyway. After Tuesday it is really quite painful so I stop wearing those shoes and revert to my rubber-soled hush puppies. The achiness gets no better and over the next few weeks, the damned thing starts to swell up as well. I put this down to a bit of a trauma – this was the diagnosis last time anyway, and I can rest it soon as it is sit-on-your-arse-it-is-Christmas time. I am still limping but whatever.

Funnily enough, I was seeing a medic around this time. Needless to say she asked me why I had not been to see my GP. I said it was all rather trivial and would get better. The fact was, I could not walk far without being in some pain. Still, I rested it over Christmas, after I got back from my parents’. All seemed to be better. I wore trainers for as long as I could, and looked forward to my second placement which would have to be in softer shoes. This all seemed better though once the swelling of the soft tissue had disappeared I was left with a hard lump on my foot. This clearly was not going away, and neither was the on-and-off aching. At this point I did book an appointment. I had to wait three weeks as there was nothing outside the hours of 9am and 4pm before then. Sigh.

I go for an MRI scan urgently as a close inspection of my x-rays had indicated that the bone growth was abnormal

I chatted to my GP, who was great; she referred me for an x-ray. Being nosey, I wanted to look at the images, so I did, albeit only on a small screen. A large calcified lump was evident, two in fact, one on each of the two larger metatarsals. Evidence of at least one stress fracture – oh bugger. Turns out the disapproving medic had been right after all. I cheerily went on my way, texting her with what little mobile phone battery I had left at the time, to say she had been right.

What I was not expecting was a second referral. My GP rang me personally to say that the consultant radiologist had recommended that I go for an MRI scan urgently as a close inspection of my x-rays had indicated that the bone growth was abnormal. She knows about my research background and so she needed to say no more than that to get her meaning across. I did not know what to think. I still do not, now.

I went for the scan. It seemed to go along alright. I left in rather a daze. Outside was colder than inside, unsurprisingly, though switching my phone back on I got a message saying I had not been given a job I had put in for earlier. No feeling. I had asked to see the images after the scan, but after a momentary stiff pause the unidentifiably-accented radiographer declined with a tone that suggested it was more trouble than it was worth to organise. I had no desire to be rude so accepted this without playing ‘the doctor card’, and left.

The next piece in this particular story has yet to come I am afraid. Hopefully I will know whether or not I have cancer by the time you read this, though. Watch this space.