New Digs

Hey, kids!  I’m back in the blogosphere with a new series, My Unremarkable Brain. 

The name for this blog series comes from an MRI that I had back in December.  2017 was an eventful year for me.  BigDave’s little world was rocked by not one, but two seizures.  More on all that later, but the long and short is that Christmas Eve-Eve found me in a hospital gown, lying prone on a mattress as thick as a kitchen sponge, sliding in and out of a loud plastic coffin while radioactive magnetic-rocket-laser-thingies¹ shot through my skull.

I’m not much of a claustrophobe (ironic for a big man, I know), so a bit of meditative deep breathing allowed me to hold still all right, but the real challenge was that I had a head cold, and I had to ignore the incessant tickle at the back of my throat and stifle the impulse to cough.

I guess I did okay, though.  I hung on till the bell, and when they finally let me up, I asked the tech, “how’s it look?”  I knew it was useless to ask: I’m sure there’s some protocol that they’re not allowed to say the results and are probably under strict orders to give some pat answer.  But how could I help myself?  “Well,” shrugged the scrub-wearing dude, “you have a brain.”  

Reassuring, that.  He also told me that my doctor would have the results in 24 hours or so, but this being the Friday before the holiday weekend, it might not be until next week sometime when I hear from him.

What he didn’t say was that, this being F.U.² hospital, where nothing seems to actually work, I might get the call closer to “never.”  I finally got closure, some weeks later, when a copy of my report — a plain two-pager that looked ripped from an old dot-matrix printer — arrived in my mailbox, for some reason.  The last line read, “IMPRESSION: Unremarkable MRI examination of the brain.”

There's a certain comfort in that.  Part of me has known since middle school — around the age that some of my classmates were being shuffled off to Gifted and Talented classes, while others were disappearing to Some Other Place — that my brain was fairly unremarkable.  But to have the fact confirmed: quantified in medical-ese and laid out in black and white, 12-point font… well, that sort of laid my middle-aged mind to rest.  

So that’s who I am.  A middle-aged guy with an unremarkable brain.    But as we all learned from the great poet Ray Stevens, in the theme song from the greatest movie of all time,³ “It’s not what you got, it’s how you use it,” and in this blog, I intend to use my two pounds of fatty gray flesh to explore the ins and outs of epilepsy, low-carb living, health and fitness, and whatever else comes my way.  Thanks for joining me, and hang on tight for what promises to be a very, very unremarkable ride.

1. Not a technical term.

2. Not the actual initials of the hospital.  

3.  I know, I know.  Purists will argue that Citizen Kane is the better film, but I mean, come on: Look at that opening!  Look at that cast! Look at those, er…cars!  It has got to be a high point in the history of Western literature.  

Note: The ramblings published on this blog are the opinions of the author alone and shared for entertainment purposes only.  The author is an English major with no medical or scientific background; thus, his words should never be taken as medical advice.  Consult with your doctor or medical professional before undertaking any diet or exercise program.