Preparing for Your Child's MRI

Nothing says goodmorning like a letter from the hospital for pre-MRI instructions for my daughter. She'll have her first MRI days after turning four months old. The first line says to not feed her after midnight. How Gremlins of them. I am quickly pointed out the exceptions to the rule are breastmilk, which is allowed up to 4 hours before the scheduled MRI, and Pedilyte/Water/Apple Juice up to 2 hours before. No metal straps on clothing or shoes, my mind immediately thinks of those educational videos about the terrors of wearing metal too close to the MRI machine.  It means I have to wait on getting her ears pierced, despite the tradition in my family to do the ears within the first three months. My daughter will have to be put under general anesthesia in order for them to get the scan, the thought of it all is just making me sick to my stomach.

There is a part to everything that is going unsaid.  I saw it in the Ophthalmologist's eyes when it was mentioned, I see the worry in my father-in-law's face whenever he sees my daughter. My sister-in-law has had a tumor in her brain since birth. Her specific disorder is called Juvenile Pilocytic Astrocytoma, or JPA, and manifested itself quite differently from my Bug's disorder, but once something like that happens in a family, and another child is born with any other sort of syndrome, the thoughts start forming, even if no one is vocalizing.

Quick, silver lining this thing.... I suppose if they thought there was something wrong and this wasn't a precautionary scan, they would have scheduled it sooner than a month and a half away, and we would have been sent to the pediatric neurologist. This does just seem like a covering their backs sort of scan, even the ophthalmologist didn't really seem that concerned about it, but the fact that it has to be done at all is unnerving. At four months old she should be starting to play with toys and lifting herself up off of mats at tummy time, rolling over perhaps, not going under for a scan of her brain.

Another huge silver lining is my mother is coming out from across the country in order to be with us for her MRI scan.   Whatever happens, she will be here to share in it all. We can either grieve or celebrate, but the important thing is I will have someone there to hold my hand, someone I look to for strength when all other options have been exhausted.  I hope and pray one day I will be able to be my daughter's rock like my mother has been mine.

Here's to waiting for a month and half for an MRI that may or may not come to anything. If I was not breastfeeding, I'd toast to it.