June 13, 2008

not losing my marbles

Starting last summer I realized that I had a few nagging, "I'm getting old" pinched nerve kind of sensations in my body, minor arm and leg tingles mostly... and then I realized I'm not all that old yet and I shouldn't just roll over and accept it without investigation. I decided to get things checked out, and so the docs ordered up a MRI of my brain.

Lo and behold, I have marbles in my brain! Ok, to be more accurate, the 'marbles' are actually calcium deposits, I only have two marbles (not enough for a game), and they're not in my brain but in the meninges (the sack lining your brain) and are just barely pushing into my brain material. In theory these marbles are my body's response to head trauma. Hmmm, maybe all those concussions aren't the best thing in the world...

In the pictures and movies below you can kinda see the marbles - both are in the middle of my brain, between the hemispheres. One is near my forehead, and one is near the crown of my head. The movies allow you to step through some of the scans - come on, how often do you get to see your own brain! This is too cool.

My neurologist says that the brain tissue itself looks perfectly healthy, and as long as the marbles aren't growing (I'll get a new scan next fall to make sure) they are benign and I get to keep them - I won't be losing my marbles!