It was a long tunnel. I was going to the light.

And the jack-hammers banging. Where were we? Oh, yes. I had just had an MRI on my brain and was waiting for the results. I guess it doesn’t take a therapist to interpret how it was that I lost my cell phone that I had been carefully clutching all day right when the doctor was due to call to discuss the results.

I had the MRI early in the morning just before leaving Florida for the mountain house where we are now until the end of the year. I had it because I’ve had some unilateral hearing loss in one ear that, upon further investigation, made the neurologist (a whiney little guy who mumbled into his left shoulder words like “tumor”  and “brain scan” while I kept saying, “what? huh? WHAT?”) think that he would like to see what was going on in the far reaches of my brain. MRIs of your brain are miserable hour-long affairs that don’t hurt at all, beyond the needle prick of dye being injected but they surely are uncomfortable. Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move, don’t blink, don’t lick your lips, don’t move and oh, btw, don’t mind the claustrophobia. I wasn’t even going to get the test because I like living in complete and total denial when it comes to things like the possibility of a brain tumor, but then we got notice that our insurance deductible for 2011 is 5000.00 per year. Per person. I was apoplectic.

Eventually I found my phone and sure enough, had missed the call, but finally my doc and I connected. The MRI gives not a single hint as to why my hearing has gone caflooey on the right side- no tumor there, nothing on the cranial nerve that had the neurologist concerned, sinuses are clear. However. About those two areas of demyelination in the left cerebral hemisphere…WHAT? HUH? Apparently those need explaining. There are several sort of semi-alarming possibilities so I have another appointment in January. Maybe. Actually, I don’t need to go to the doctor because I know exactly what they are. One is the spot that keeps me from finishing sentences and the other is the spot that makes it so I can’t remember which movie I saw last week. Frankly, this is not new news and I’ve been living in this slightly adulpated state forever, just ask my children and there is no other symptomatology whatsoever. Except for the punctuation problem. This is again a reminder of why my father’s advice was good: If you get sick, make yourself well again (preferably by working harder). If you think you might be sick, avoid doctors at all cost.

So now, as it stands, I’m partially deaf and totally blind on the right side. I was considering calling one of those social security disability claim lawyers on afternoon television but instead I ordered Oliver Sacks new book, The Mind’s Eye. He writes about the resilient brain and the process of compensation, how people make up for what they have lost. He’s written several other interesting books that I’ve read, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat but this one he wrote after, fairly recently, losing his vision in one eye. I wonder if he’s noticed yet that no matter how well his brain finds ways to compensate for no depth perception or peripheral vision, he will never be able to appreciate those dot pictures they sell at the mall. If he wants, I can give him a tip on how to cheat the peripheral vision part of the driver’s license test. I can also tell him that, should his spouse snore inordinately loud, diminished hearing in one ear has its benefits. Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading the book with my one good eye.

I have some other news to share. Our grandbaby is here to visit. Kellan is our first; he is Rich’s Anna’s 3 month old. This I will share in pictures. And you’ll be either jealous or really happy for us or both.

I tidied up the house, baked the cookies and put up the tree so there would be lights and shiny things to look at…

I made up the guest room, including the crib that is now holding a fifth generation.

And Rich went to the airport to pick them up and this is how happy he is. (This photo makes me all teary happy. Both eyes, incidentally, cry.)

And it’s a whole new world with so many amazing and wonderful things to see.