Hello Danbo, 

Welcome to our forum and I hope you will meet others here who will have had experience of the MRI with contrast. We have some information on our site on the MRI which you can access here. 

It must be stressful for you not to know why this additional test has been ordered and I hope you get some answers soon. You are absolutely right though - Google never provides any good answers so if you can, do ask your medical team instead what it all means. 

You are also welcome to give our nurses a call and talk things through with them. You can ring them on this free number 0808 800 4040 - their line is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. 

I hope the MRI goes well and that you won't have to wait long for it. We are keeping everything crossed for you and if you get a chance do come back and let us know how it all went. 

Best wishes, 

Lucie, Cancer Chat Moderator

Hi Danbi,

Dr Google NEVER provides any good answers, just scary ones. 

On the positive side, you know that someone is looking out for you and taking your case seriously. Many of us have experienced the opposite and had our fears dismissed, only for them to have been proved right.

For what it is worth, I was at a cancer conference recently where we were told that, under current NICE guidelines, if there is a 3% or higher risk of a clinical condition a referral for diagnostics must be made. OK, that means that 97%  of cases will prove to be negative, but it is far better to have 97 people worried unnecessarily than just 1 person diagnosed at stage 4. I must admit an interest here - I was one of those 1 in a hundred under the old "less onerous" NICE guidelines. 

They know very little more than you do, they are just playing it safe based on medical knowledge, clinical experience and statistics. Try not to second guess anyone - they are just following best practice and established protocols. What is a unique experience to you and me as cancer patients is just another day at work for the professionals who care for us.

Good luck with the scan results,

Dave

Thanks for the replies. I’m going to try to just let the doctors do their investigation and wait for the outcome rather than worry about every possibility.

I did get a call back from my consultant yesterday who explained things a little better. He basically said that a small spot was noticed in the marrow towards the base of my spine, which he thinks is likely to be be nothing. They are going to run all the checks they can to confirm what it is and then go through the scans with me. 

He did mention that he’d also get a neurologist to speak to me after going through the scans which is a little worrying that it is something sinister. But nothing I can do now but wait and see and hope for the best. At least I have abit more info as to what their looking for now, rather than guessing at the numerous things google says it could have been.