Saturday 28 December 2013

MRI scan

The end of the week before Christmas then was his MRI scan. Typically it fell on his last day of school. He was rather cross with me as I only found out the day before that it was going to happen. He was exhausted so I didn't tell him until that morning. He woke up to discover that he was not allowed to eat breakfast, and that he was going to miss Show and Tell. At least he'd miss his spelling test! It was his first scan in Truro, so it was better than doing another Bristol trip. He was to have a general anaesthetic. Joel hates canulas so he always has to have gas to knock him out. The play specialist gave Joel a poorly monkey to keep. It's Joel's job to put his canula in and give the monkey his medicine. This is to try to get rid of Joel's phobia, so that he's happy to have his blood tests done in America.



I always ask for a sedative for Joel before he has the gas, to make it easier on him. He's scared of the word 'medicine' so he has to have his 'final drink' - he's not easily fooled, apparently it tastes disgusting. Fortunately, when Santa visited the grotto for all the CLIC Sargent children the week before, he left a present for Joel. This was enough to persuade him to drink it. He even opened Thomas's present for him!

The anaesthetist was fantastic and told Joel a story about visiting the animals at Newquay zoo, and how he had to smell the parrot and monkey poo! Enough to make him take some big deep breaths! He usually pretends to be a super fast racing car driver with breathing apparatus, but as he's becoming wise to this, a new story worked a treat.


He took a long time to come around but then happily played with the lego from Santa. A couple of hours later he was able to get into school to say his last goodbye's before the Christmas holidays and his impending trip to America.

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