Unremarkable

I have always thought I was special, or at least my brain was. As a youngster, I tested high and was placed in a class for gifted students. I’ve always been good at math and word games. I have two masters degrees. And now I have Parkinson’s, which only .5% of all brains have. You see, a special brain.

With the increased attention on my brain as I prepared for DBS, my special brain was on display for many doctors and other healthcare professionals. I had an MRI of the brain. Not just a plain MRI but one with contrast dye injected so the results were more detailed. I waited impatiently for the radiologist report. I was excited to see all the wonderful things that is on the report about my brain. I expected phrases like “above average”, “larger than usual”, and “better than most.”

When I receive the report, my eyes went down the page, skipping the technical language like intracranial infarction and mastoid air cells, and right to the summary. One word stuck out, “unremarkable.” The contrast dye not only gave me a rash, but it also obscured my special brain. Unremarkable. Oatmeal is unremarkable. My bedsheets are unremarkable. My Jetta is unremarkable. Almond milk is unremarkable. My brain is not unremarkable.

Before I could ponder the possibility of an unremarkable brain, I figured out what happened. There are words in medicine that mean the opposite of, what they mean in real life. The most common example is “negative.” In medicine “negative” means a good result and positive means bad result. A negative COVID-19 test means you do not have it. The positive test means you should not have attended your friends’ super spreader wedding.  If negative means positive, then unremarkable must mean remarkable. See how smart I am?