I spent time yesterday studying my MRI, comparing my brain with pictures of normal MRI’s I found online at Google images. What a treasure trove Google is! Just being able to find pictures of what “normal” looks like has been a great boon to me.
Looking at MRIs can be very trippy, and looking at my own brain is kind of spooky. From looking at it, the untrained eye could easily become very disoriented and alarmed. But knowing what other normal MRIs look like is very helpful. How else would I know that I’m not a freak of nature? The brain is just so fascinating!
It’s so great to find descriptions of the normal brain MRIs, since it can be hard to figure out what you’re looking at. I’ve got a used textbook on neuroscience I picked up, as well as a copy of Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy, which is a hefty tome of highly detailed drawings (done by Dr. Netter) of virtually every part of the human body, which also have every little piece clearly marked and labelled. I look at my MRI, then I consult my Netter’s book, then I Google the part of my brain that I think I’m looking at and read about it, and then consult my neuroscience textbook, to read more in-depth information that’s at a student level. Fascinating.
But I’m surprised to be having such a hard time finding information on reading MRIs. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Maybe that type of information is too advanced to be safe to release into the public, lest we all fire our radiologists, start reading our own MRIs, and jump to conclusions about ourselves. I’ve already had people look askance at me, when I told them I was going to be studying my MRI. They clearly seemed to think that I’m not qualified to do it, but I figure, why let that stop me? I’m not getting paid by anyone to ply that trade, and I’m only interested in my own situation, and it’s really just for my own gratification, so I’m not letting their skepticism stop me. It’s my body. I’ll study it to my heart’s content.
I know there’s no substitute for a qualified neurologist or radiologist, but I really need to understand what’s going on with me, and nobody seems to have the time to spend with me to make sure I’m clear on what’s going on. It’s very discouraging to have this level of testing done, only to not be able to find someone to help me understand it. The neuro I saw a week ago wouldn’t give me any more information, other than that my tests read as normal. I asked if they could show me the film, but they brushed me off. Maybe they thought I’d be looking for something that doesn’t exist… malingering and all that. I’m not malingering. I’m curious! And honestly, I don’t want to milk this and make myself out to be sicker than I am. I just want to know why my life experience is so different from what I hear everyone else describing. I want to know why I have the many, many issues I’ve got. I want to know what makes my brain unique — and treat that uniqueness as a strength, not a weakness. And having MRI images to help me gain just a little more insight into my situation seems like a great opportunity to learn more… even/especially if what I learn is that my variations on experience are “within normal range” and not the sort of thing I need to be concerned about.
I did find some pictures of my brain that I have questions about. Places where there are asymmetries and/or dark/light spots that might be old injuries or some abnormality. The part of me that’s been on high alert — or hovering around there — is eager to run off to a neuro to get the spots and dots and bright places explained… to explain how the asymmetries in my brain might translate to some irregularities in how my mind works. I know I need to calm down, get some rest, let it all sink in. There’s no tremendous hurry, now that I know that I’m not in imminent danger from a brain tumor or MS or some other terrible neurological condition. I can relax, now. And I need to make more of an effort at doing that.
In the meantime, while I recover from my over-excitabilities, I’ll think about my next steps. Study normal MRIs online, look around, just do the whole visual image thing, getting my eyes used to the sight of MRIs, so when I do get a chance to talk to a neuro about my results, I can sound at least moderately intelligent. I’m thinking about contacting that last neuro I went to see — the one who treated me like I was looking for drugs, who has since apparently recanted their attitude towards me and offered to help me “in any way” they can. I may give them another chance — but next time, take someone I trust with me, and ask the neuro to just walk me through the high-level points of my MRI. There are some things that are grabbing my attention, and I would like a little bit of an explanation.
I really need someone to read it who knows how to interpret the orientation of the images. I think MRIs may give you a mirror image of a body part, so the left side of the picture is actually the right side. At least, that’s the impression I get from reading descriptions of MRIs that show clear anomalies on the left side… but the text talks about right-side issues. It gets confusing. One side of my brain is shaped a little differently than the other, and I’m not sure if my right side is lop-sided, or if it’s my left. I think it makes a difference, too, which side is varied from the “norm” — left and right sides have different functionality, or so I understand, and if I’ve got developmental issues with one side of my brain, then knowing about them might help me better understand and manage my own issues.
It could be that I’m on some wild goose chase, and that all the differences in my brain are in fact quite normal. But looking at my pictures and comparing them with other MRIs, my head is kind of lop-sided, and one side of my brain has a noticeably different angle than the other side — between the lower frontal/parietal lobes and the temporal lobe that sits beneath it. I’ve got some asymmetrical bulges, and in some places, one part of my brain looks like it’s been crowded by another part that is not shaped the same way as others’ normal pix. It is considerably wider and looks bigger than I’ve seen elsewhere, so that just makes me wonder.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing, having parts of my brain differently arranged than the norm. If anything, it’s probably an advantage. Even if my brain developed differently over the course of my life, it hasn’t completely stopped me from living my life, and no one would probably ever guess that it’s developmentally different. I’ve been far too successful in my life, far too resilient, far too capable, far too adaptable, far too effective, all across the board, for any sort of developmental differences to be a liability. If anything, my differences are a strength. And I’d never part with them. Not at all.
Looking at all these “normal MRI” pix, I have to wonder… What is normal, anyway? If you think about it, the chances of anyone turning out the same way as other people are just so slim. The human body is an amazingly intricate and sensitive system that can be impacted by unseen, invisible forces that we don’t recognize for a long time, if we recognize them at all. We’ve got billions and billions of cells constantly growing and changing and multiplying, we’ve got tons of distinct body parts, we’ve got so many different bodily functions, many of them invisible to us. And we’ve got not only our internal world but our external world to deal with and factor in. Some days, I’m amazed that the human race — or, for that matter, any living creature — makes it through a single day.
Lots can go wrong. Lots can change us. Lots can affect us and our development. But variations are what keep the human race viable. The healthiest living systems have a lot of variety in them, and I would expect that variations in brain development are critical for a healthy system, as well. Even if those variations appear to be “disabilities” or some other sort of rare deviation. The human brain is an amazing organ, and not only can it do things we cannot even begin to imagine possible, but it can also accommodate a whole lot of additional variations and bounce back from injuries, with neuroplasticity and remapping functions and other mechanisms we haven’t even begun to name. (I haven’t done a plug for The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, in a few months, so I’ll mention it here — if you have doubts about the ability of the brain to adapt, then you should definitely check it out.)
So, even if my brain is developmentally anomalous, and even if it got broken along the way with those hits and falls and accidents, and even if it gets tired and overwhelmed and doesn’t know where it is, sometimes, it’s still mine. It’s what I have to work with. And so far, injuries and accidents notwithstanding, it’s still going strong.
Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind 