Rob's Brain

The medical report finally came through; the doctors have figured out what is causing all my headaches. The enhanced MRI shows it all, all the twists and curves and misaligned synapses which transform normal thought into random gibberish.As you can see, the nerves are dotted with yellow mineral deposits; these are concentrations of sulphur ions which interrupt the normal synaptic flow, causing fluctuations in memory retrieval, difficulty in recalling names, symptomatic of senility. The twists and curves alter the normal path of the nerve impulses, causing delays and short-circuits. This explains my inability to complete a normal conversation without losing my train of thought and sputtering something pointless about the weather (my only safe conversational point).

Apparently this malady, called "Chihully Syndrome", causes intense pain due to its spring-like qualities; when under stress, the curved coil-like structures, normally compressed like springs under tension, expand against the inside of the skull and against the sinus cavity. The nerve impulses from these areas then feed back into the brain, causing additional recursive expansion; this cycle repeats endlessly until either the subject's head explodes, or the sinus cavity is reduced to its minimum size (about the size of a pea). Relief is only obtained by performing a complete brainectomy, which involves extraction of all brain tissue through the nasal cavity using a tool called a 'spoon'.

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Just kidding.

Actually, it's a close-up photo of the following glass sculpture by Dale Chihully, which is currently set up for display at the Meijer Gardens here in Grand Rapids.Cheryl took Mary over there on Thursday while Deb was at her baby-sitting class. They had lots of cool glass sculptures, many of them floating in the lake.That one looks kinda funky. Like a big, spiky puffball.

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But that first picture reminded me of one I'd seen somewhere of the inside of someone's brain (post-autopsy) after they'd been complaining for years of headaches. Their brain cells were like tightly-curved springs instead of the undulating curves of a normal brain, and totally unlike the brains of Altzeimer's patients. It was like their cells had gone crazy, continually growing in tight spirals, which apparently resulted in cross-circuit epileptic 'storms' and caused intense pain. These storms didn't result in spasmodic impulses to the musculo-skeletal system, which is what often happens in a traditional epileptic seizure; instead, since the circuits were interconnected to each other, the impulses fed back into themselves in a positive-feedback cycle until they reached some maximum level, at which point the only recourse for the patient was to take massive doses of narcotics and pass out. Then the patient had to be very careful to not think too much (!) or become mentally stressed, or the symptoms would re-appear.

Reminded me a bit of today. We did our usual bit at church, then went down to attend an Open House for a girl who had just graduated High School. My headache had been getting gradually worse as the day went on, not really that bad compared to the past three or four days, but by the time we got back home around 4 or 5, it had gotten bad enough that I had to lie down for awhile. And I slept hard. For the first hour or so after getting up, my brain felt like it was still non-functional, unable to focus. But then I was able to watch Harry Potter and play a game of Heroscape with Adam, so it apparently was almost back to normal.

But now that it is getting late again, my brain is tired and ready for more sleep.

And you know what? Even though I've had a pretty good nap, it'll take me all of three minutes to fall alseep. And then I'll sleep so hard that nothing, not even a summer thunderstorm, will wake me up.

And I'll be up bright and early at 6 am to let the cat out and get the coffee going.