Handsome CR

Today was amazing. I've been waiting a month and a half to write up this blip..and now that I've waited this long, the entry won't do the memory justice.

So I'm doing my subspeciality in pediatric neurology this week with Dr. DeLine in Corpus at Driscoll. Today, we started off the morning seeing patients with Cerebral Palsy.. some quadriplegic, some paraplegic.

One little boy, in particular, stands out to me. I can't remember the cause of his CP, but Dr. DeLine showed me an MRI of his brain. It looked completely normal. Normal gyri, normal sulci, normal volume. He tracks with his eyes but he doesn't speak, he doesn't walk, he sits in his chair.

I was thinking about this kid who has an otherwise normal-looking brain on MRI scan and wondering what went wrong that he seems to be trapped in his little body.

Our last patient of the afternoon had arrived. Dr. DeLine showed me the MRI of her brain. She was missing an entire hemisphere. She had had an intrauterine stroke and the left side of her brain was completely affected. It had dissolved. I was instantly sad and wondering what I was going to find when I opened the door to interview the 8 yr old girl. As my preceptor and I entered the room, I was greeted by a delightful, rambunctious 8 yr old girl who was laughing and playing with her dad. She was sarcastic and witty and able to write her name (with her left hand, of course) and was hopping about the room. She had some strength in her right hand and no language deficits. She was able to walk, talk, make jokes, read, respond intelligently, write... I had tears in my eyes.

The infant brain is remarkable. The way God created the brain is astonishing to me. The plasticity, the unknown, the potential. I was awestruck and still am, a month and a half later.