I’m losing my mind… literally

Okay. In the last year or so, I’ve been having quite a few brain tests. Specifically, 5 days in the hospital last summer, 2 sessions of food and sleep deprivation in preparation for EKGs, MRIs, EEGs, and probably more. So the consensus is that my right hippocampus is scarred. (This is called mesial-temporal sclerosis.) Apparently each time I have a seizure the scarring gets worse. We know this because it shows up all white and bigger than the other hippocampus in the brain scans and stuff. Turns out this white inflammation is scar tissue. In our last epilepsy clinic, which is where we talk to the surgeons and decide if I’m gonna get surgery, they broke it to me that not only is it very scarred, it’s so scarred that it doesn’t even work. So they’re gonna take the entire hippocampus out of my brain. Yes– the very structure in charge of learning and memory. The right one, my non-functional half, is over visual and spacial stuff. Oddly enough, that includes math and that kind of thing… hmmm. correlation? It’s kind of scary to know they’re taking out the whole darn thing, but since it’s so damaged and, as the surgeon called it, sick, I suppose it won’t make any difference. But anyway, I just found it ultra-intriguing to know that half of my brain, the part that remembers stuff no less, is broken. Poor guy. He’s had a long, hard life, going through so much pain and suffering with each seizure, meanwhile trying to work through stats and chemistry and trig and everything else. I take my hat off (or I guess part of my head off) (haha) to this dear friend of mine. We’ve been together for such a long time, it’ll be sad to see him go. But he’s done well. Farewell, dear Right Hippocampus. Until we meet again, Adios.