26 April 2014
1855 hrs
Well, Patient Reader,
Here we are again. That's right baby; I'm back.
What the hell is going on these days? Planes just vanish. Ferries sink. Pine tar seems ubiquitous in the Northeast. At least in their ballparks.
Albuquerque P.D. declared open season on unarmed citizens. NY tried to show the rest of the world a kinder, gentler NYPD and went on Twitter, asking citizens to share their tales of Police Non-Brutality. Just go to BBC/news.uk and see how well that worked out for them.
But I don't feel like railing on the eternal troubles that have been plaguing the world since the dinosaurs died off and left a vacuum for mammals to fill.
But I will go on a bit about one of my favorite and most hated fields: That of Medicine.
You know, people say that Health Care is a privilege, and not a right. But I seem to recall in our Declaration of Independence . . . you know, that document seemingly no one else has read (except for you of course, Patient Reader), and it plainly states that we have a right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Haha. I said Penis . . . <giggle snort> (sorry; very tired, here . . .)
You see, we, as a species, consider ourselves above all other animals. It is in this arrogant statement where I feel that humanity is at its worst. We tell ourselves that we are above all living things; that we sit atop the food chain. We justify war and violence as necessary and even good. That is counterintuitive, at least to me. We somehow think it’s OK to hurt and maim. So it is my firm belief that humanity, as a whole, doesn’t reach the heights of our “lesser” critters. Adam was told to name the animals. Platypus. Really, Adam?
Deep beneath our cortices lie the same brain found in the serpent and the crocodile. It is the brain found in the ancient salamander, the direct descendant of the first quadruped that crawled from the sea, filling its proto-lungs with our young atmosphere’s poisonous air.
How we fancy ourselves; we with our opposable thumbs and our vestigial coccyges . . .
Still holding ourselves up as the only animate creatures capable of emotion.
All others, we incorrectly conclude, act on instinct alone. We are even so bold to tell ourselves that the emotion we see in the eyes of another animal are simply a reflection of our own.
We forget about our quasi-arboreal ancestors, when doubtful of the tawny shadows that pass silently through the tall grass, climbed the nearest tree. We forget that we watched in horror from the safety of the branches as the slower and the infirm of us took the first bloody steps to become lion feces.
We forget that the fear we feel today is routed through the same wiring that is in the lizard brain, the lissencephaly; it is the same fear, even, that the fish feels when there is a moray about . . . or a trolling motor.
We breathe from our brainstems, we vertebrates. We all see and smell via fibrous bundles of tissues made of specialized neurons and named nerve tracts. These are far too primitive to be called true nerves.
My heart beats as does that of the tortoise; not because I desire it, but because my ancient brain commands it. An oblong mass of neuronal tissue sitting atop my spinal cord has taken away my free will.
We all dream as the dog dreams, twitching as we chase the hare. Surely their hearts as do our own, desire to be cradled; to fit tightly and safely within the warm embraces.
Each of us has sought love’s true name, and our hands, having reached, come back empty.
I was told once that, “Love is simply a word that has as many definitions as there are beings to define it . . .”
And in this, its preciseness, its profound clarity, I find some solace. Then I remember my evolution. I remember science trumps superstition every time. And I find within the vagueness of the phrase, a web of sorrows . . .
For something to have infinite definitions, it is to mean it has no definition at all. Something that has no definition cannot exist. If giraffes are tables are lemurs are shoes, then nothing can be anything. Everything is reduced to nothing.
While part of my mind finds comfort and a quiet peace inherent in the Zen koan (for I am the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, am I not?), my heart still staggers in the certainty of losing something ungraspable in the first place.
But it is the science of the brain that is tangible. It is the brain that learns there are more questions than the heart can answer. Our brains . . . these grand machines, these enduring engines, are every bit as ancient and fragile as the jellyfish. Our carbon computers, half a billion years in the making, sometimes fracture and fail us.
The Bodhisattva of Wisdom
How long ‘til my soul gets it right? Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?
-Emily Saliers
Staff Notes; Neurophysiology Consult, 22 April
Pt. Miranda P.
6 y/o white female presenting w/ frequent (>8/dy) paroxysmal events
Ictus consists of Rt hemiplegia w/tonic posturing and hypertonia ipsilaterally
Progresses clinically into secondary generalization, tonic/clonic seizure after ± 10 secs
Electroneurodiagnostics will probably reveal focal slowing in Lt parieto-temporal region of cortex
Recommend EEG to rule out electrographic changes due to space-occupying lesion; obtain, please
Imaging will probably reveal a lesion as astrocytoma or possibly glioma/glioblastoma. R/O glioblastoma multiforme
Recommend Head MRI; obtain, please
Tx to neurosurgery service post confirmation
Our brains, these organs, wrinkled and delicate like grandmother’s hands, are much more complex than most people realize. Even neuroscientists stand back and marvel at its intricate elegance; these electrochemical power generators.
Brains are simply batteries. The cells contain chemicals that produce direct-current electricity. The potentials are measured in microvolts, and amplitude is measured in millimeters. These are observed oscilloscopically as sine waves, calculable and quantifiable with mathematics. The Mind can be, in fact, measured.
Yet despite all of our science, we are still unable to define consciousness.
The famous “gray matter” are the neurons; axons, dendrites, cell bodies . . . These are the beginnings of who and what we are and are to become. They are there as soon as stem cells become them; nothing but a pre-fetal neural tube as fragile as a promise.
Neurons make up, for the most part, the neo-cortex. Other specialized cells within it are, for example, those that form the blood vessels that nourish it.
As is suggested by the name, the neo-cortex is the “newest” part of the brain. This is where the non-essential bodily functions are controlled and monitored. Our humanity, whatever that means, is housed herein.
The pre-frontal cortex just behind and above the eyebrows, is where we weigh consequences and plan, abstractedly, scenarios through time. This is where we make decisions through reasoning. This is where we us the words “If” and “Then.”
Had we souls, herein is where they would reside.
Wow, Patient Reader . . . time flies. Looks like I’m going to have to finish this post later. Time for class.
Again, I thank you for keeping on keeping on. And thanks for your emails. You’re welcome to send these comments via the Blog, if you like, but emails are just fine. I consider the emails as personal correspondence, so I very rarely post them. Comments, on the other hand, are shared.
Good Day to you, Patient Reader. Shall I leave you to it? Splendid!
The Cunning Fennec Fox
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