Magneto could do his own MRIs, too

Posted by September Blue Wednesday 4 June 2008

My advice for anyone with a rare neuromuscular condition that they're interested in learning more about, what with their GP being patronisingly useless and all: DO NOT GOOGLE IT. Trust me on this. Sure, you come up with some interesting articles in medical journals, and you find out interesting stuff about what nerves do what (including the fact that the cranial nerve you've most likely got problems with is actually associated with migraines and light sensitivity), but then you will read a little more, and a little more, and before long you're paragraphs-deep into articles full of things like "cerebral cortical and basal ganglia misdevelopment," "structural abnormalities of the brain," and "developmental delays."

The rational part of me points out that not discovering anything about developmental delays until I was twenty-seven and had a PhD suggests I have most likely dodged that bullet. The less rational part of me is jumping up and down in exclamation marks, wondering what bullets I might have been attributing to other things. I'm terrible at recognising faces; maybe it's because I have structural abnormalities of the brain? I can't tie shoelaces that don't unravel themselves and snake for freedom after five minutes; is that because I have structural abnormalities of the brain? Inability to function in a coherent state before double-digit times in the morning? Inexplicable fondness for Wham's 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'? Maybe it's all in my head in a very literal sense.

Or maybe not, given the odds. Sadly for my irrational fears, I am fairly normal. But you can't tell me that your mind wouldn't have gone galloping off down that path in that same situation, any more than you can tell me you wouldn't also be thinking, right now, that such things should come with an associated superpower and waiting to see what yours is. Long, sad years of experimentation suggest that I am unable to do Wolverine-claws or fly like Nathan Petrelli, but damn it, there should be something. That would be fair, right?

1 Responses to Magneto could do his own MRIs, too

  1. Sisyphus Says:
  2. When I got sent to the emergency room for my fish allergy for the first time, I searched "anaphlactic shock" and terrified myself by reading some news reports. I think I worked myself up into such a mental state that for the next couple weeks I was hyperventillating and basically creating the symptoms, somatically, all over again every time I ate something, even though I wasn't allergic to every type of food out there. It's pretty embarrassing when the doctor tells you that.

    So, it could be worse, eh?