Cross sections of the neck are grosser looking than cross sections of the arm. The neck is mostly gristle.
I look at the films and think, "Euw. Is that my trachea? Euw. Is that my spinal cord? Euw. What's all that other tissue?"
I don't think I managed to stay as still as I did when they did my shoulder either. Somehow it's impossible to keep immobile the body part they're imaging. They put you in this plastic thing to keep that part of you immobile, but which really just makes you so uncomfortable that you can't help but twitch. For this image of my neck, they put my head in a cradle, pack foam rubber around my head, and then lock a plastic frame over my face. My neck is therefore in a rather unnatural position and even so, I find that my neck moves constantly when I breathe. Moreover, every time the machine kicks on for another series of images, it's (1) loud and (2) sudden and therefore I jump as much as one can with one's head locked in a plastic cage.
It's too bad they aren’t imaging my right knee. My right knee is perfectly still for the whole twenty minutes the machine runs.
208 words | December 29, 2004 10:33 PM | Miss Trauma