2024_06_22 The Neurosurgeon's Impression

Cysticercus? Not your circus. The monkeys are in my head.

I am thinking of the neurosurgeon, how at one point I mentioned a PV space and he said, “you mean a Virchow-Robin space?”

And I said, “yes.” Then asserted, “It’s the same thing.”

And he responded gently, kindly, graciously, “yes, it’s the same thing.”

You don’t see that willingness to communicate every day. Secretly, I was honored.

His assistant called me to say he’d looked at my annotations along with a neuroradiologist, and did not believe the items in my annotations would account for my symptoms; were, “for lack of a better word, nothing”. I did not find this convincing and said so, then thanked her for relaying the message. I was disappointed, but I do believe they gave it their attention, and what else can I ask?

Sometimes I wonder at my lost verbal filters. For most of my life I was vox verboten for fear of drawing attention to myself. Now I just say what’s on my mind, ask the radiology assistant if he’s single, that sort of thing. But of course perimenopause, hysterectomy, long-term illness/ disability, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, two years of 90mg Duloxetene daily… these things likely factor.

I think now I was remiss in including the midline sagittal from 2023 in the annotations I showed to the neurosurgeon. The assistant mentioned one that was likely a blood vessel, and I wonder if that’s it. I linked an article before about blood vessels in that general vicinity as potential pseudolesions in high resolution MRI. I think in that instance, it’s likely… anyway, why show it to anyone when I have multiple “circle with dot” signs? It’s a distractor. Can’t afford those. Must maximize communication efficiency.

And yet respect my own disability in regards to executive function. Hmm. I’ll figure it out eventually. Because it is my problem, and I have to.