Update on the MRI Mix Up

Last year is now a form of the yesterday.

This year is now a form of tomorrow.

And with this new tomorrow, delivers answers that yesterday couldn’t provide.

Deep, right?

:)

Seriously, with the new year, comes new answers. The short version is that I do have Enlarged Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome (EVAS) as confirmed by the CT Scan. If you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, a nimble little summarization of my last post:

None of the medical quacks I have seen in the past have managed to figure out exactly WHY I am the way I am - deaf and the only one in the family too.

Fast forward to twenty-four years later, my cochlear implant surgeon discovers that I have an Enlarged Vestibular Aqueduct on the CT scan or MRI film. Uncertain which one he had used to diagnose EVAS but I was happier than a pig in poop that I had an answer. In my eyes or ears, depending on what orifice you want to use, it was the golden grail of my deafness. My surgeon kept the CT scan films because that is what he is going as a guide to implant my other ear and sends me home with the MRI films.

Seven hours later around eight o'clock at night, I was sitting in my favorite chair with my dog asleep at my heels dreaming of the freshly baked carob chip cookies and peanut butter barkcuits, I just happen to be nosing around in the envelope containing the MRI films and discovered that most of the films don’t belong to me.

In my appalled state, my findings immediately tainted the doctor’s diagnosis because I was unsure what films he used – the CT scans or the MRI films. My dog woke up at this point.

Before my eyes glazed over in premenstrual madness, I could see that the information on the MRI films gave me the name of the facility, the patients name, date of birth and the date the tests were done. Very convenient. The date matched the date that I had my tests done. So, the radiology facility that I had the tests done at had given me the wrong MRI films!.

I've been quite the busy little bionic bee trying to get to the bottom of this but because of the holidays, it has been a slow crawl. Note to you all, just in the case where you feel the desire to go snooping around around your medical files, do it during normal business hours. It will save you much grief. But with just a couple of emails, I could confirm that my surgeon used the CT scan films to determine that I have EVAS. Whew! To alleviate any doubt, I had them double check to verify that all my CT scans belong to me.

This brings me to shifting my focus on the facility where I had my CT scan and MRI done. I shall return the MRI films that do NOT belong to me but I just want the radiology facility to provide me with a copy of my MRI films which they are giving me a little issue. I’m in duel mode right now for that. I want them to reread my films because this mix up has created a little thundercloud of doubt about the authenticity of the MRI report.

In the grand scheme of whole medical screw up, it was most likely a very honest mistake that I ended up with someone elses MRI films. It happens and no one got hurt, thankfully. Logically, I would have liked SOMEONE to have caught this instead of me discovering it over a year and half later.

But back to the fact that I have an answer which is all I ever wanted. My mother always had it in the back of her mind that maybe it was the antibiotics she took when she was pregnant with me when she had pneumonia. Ototoxicity is a real issue, so it was plausible. My father always had it in the back of his mind that maybe the piece of meat I swiped off the counter that caused E. coli that could have caused it. I had a high fever with that, so that could have killed my hearing. I always wondered which one of my many childhood illnesses that I had could have caused it. I mean I was anemic, I had blood transfusions, I had my tonsils ripped out along with my adenoids. I was a sniveling mess of a child with a very lengthy hearing history.

It is a huge relief to know it was something that I was born with and it was inevitable that I would become profoundly deaf. It was all me and it was meant to be.