First time for everything.

So, how's your week been?

Well, mine has been a week of 'firsts'!

This week was the first time that I've had my eyelid turned inside out!
Yes, that did happen.  The doctor did it with a cotton bud, very adeptly too.  Not a pleasant experience, but it proved to him that there was nothing lodged in my eye, and instead I must be suffering from some mystery infection.  That was the good news!  The bad news meant putting some horrible ointment in my eye twice a day until whatever infection was in it cleared up.

Then there was the 'Mystery of the Sprained Ankle'.
A book title?   I think the chapters would all read the same.  A long drawn out description of pain.  Some pondering as to how the sprain occurred.  Some more moaning about pain,  Some more pondering, and then the build up to the final chapter where at last the pain killers are introduced!  That would be the plot for the first book, and in this case, I sincerely hope there isn't a sequel!

And following that there was the 'Night in the A&E'.
That sounds like the title to a horror movie,  And the script, if I would care to write it, would read like a script from one too.  That will be one movie I won't be buying on DVD to watch over again...

And in a further twist to the plot of mishaps, this week I had my first X-Ray, followed by my first MRI scan.

Seriously!

The X-ray was nothing, all over in 10 seconds.  Wish I could say the same for the MRI.  If any of you have every had one then you can skip this paragraph and go straight to the end.  And if any of you haven't had one, then you can stop reading and go straight to the end also.  It's not a nice experience, especially when you are being led to your fate by a very nice radiographer who claps her hands and exclaims with glee "Oh a Newbie"  when I told her that I had never had one before.

So, because of my lack of knowledge and familiarity with the process, she took great delight in explaining the process from top to bottom.  As well as all the technical stuff, she promised me nice music and a pleasant 15 minutes of peace for myself.    

I believed her, she was very convincing.

Well they put me in position, gave me the some headphones an escape button to squeeze if I felt under duress, and then sent me on my way down the tunnel.

I can't tell you what it was like inside, because I never opened my eyes.   I decided to keep them tightly shut and concentrate on the music.  When I was finally rolled into position they turned on the radio just as Michael Jackson was having a chat with some guy in the mirror.  When he was finished, Katie Melua was counting bicycles in Beijing, and after that Frankie Valley's eyes adored me, (well you couldn't really blame him as I was very fetching in my blue hospital gown).  Then just as it was all getting a bit too much for me, Labi Siffre was singing about something inside so strong...  How did he know??  I didn't hear Labi finish as the radiographer interrupted him and said she was taking me out.  BIG SIGH of relief!

The radiographer couldn't believe how still I had kept, and was delighted that she didn't have to re-do any of the scans.  Not as delighted as me!  But anybody that has spent a night in the same room as me can testify that when I sleep, I never move.  In fact, on one girly weekend away, my sister-in-law and a friend stood over me for ages willing me to move so that they could see that I was still alive.  So my ability to be very still has finally paid off by enabling me to get in and out of that horrible noisy machine, quickly.

When it was all over and I was leaving the clinic, the radiographer gave me a CD.  For a minute I thought it was a copy of the music I had been listening to as a souvenir!  In fact, it was a copy of my scans.  Kevin insisted on having a look at it when we got home, and put it into the computer, but we couldn't open any of the files.  So not to disappoint him, I'm now doing a re-enactment of the whole process using the couch as the MRI machine!

And can I just say, too, that I have the nicest friends.  They all came to visit me with flower, cake and chocolate.  I'm feeling very spoiled!  Thank you all very much.

I'm also feeling much better and my ankle is now less swollen than it was, which means that I can probably go out for a drink tomorrow night.  I might even have two drinks.

And anybody that knows me would knows that that would definitely be another first for me....