here this wednesday

I believe I’ve mentioned a few times the past four or so years incidents in which my brain stopped working – periods of 15 to 30 minutes when I simply could not talk, in one case could not write. Maybe I noted my doctor referring “my case” to the Kaiser nuerology department, which got back to him with three clinical recommendations – send the kid for a carotid ultrasound; send the kid for a heart echo ultrasound; and for sure, send the kid for an MRI. Yesterday I sat in my doctor’s office and he gave me the lowdown – in regular language – of those tests results.

My carotid arteries have plaque at the lowest measured level. My heart continues to pump in ways that would make a 20-year old glad. There was nothing to see in my brain (which I’ll talk about that another time). No lesions, no tumors, no evidences of stroke – mini, maxi, in-between. Pretty much a “Looks like you get to keep on keepin’ on” diagnosis.

I wanted you to know that. When I asked, “Well, then, why the language check-outs?” it was pretty much a, “Beats me.” And I do not find this discouraging. I left the office and felt free enough to stop at a Sprouts and buy two containers of different yogurts and an organic cucumber. I came home and drank coffee (5:15pm) and read a book from a little library and ate some dinner and a bunch of peanuts and took a shower late, got to wake up again this morning and did the things I keep getting to do – keeping on keepin’ on things – one of which is this.

My good friend Joyce in Portland, after the first of these brain vacations, offered her opinion that perhaps what had happened was simply a “reboot.” I always liked that, and here this Wednesday morning there isn’t hi-tech photographic imagery which says otherwise.

Perhaps this is my dx: Like Ferris – “A righteous dude in a loose mood.”