Last week I managed to get hold of a copy of my medical record, as part of my quest to find out if I had a blood transfusion during surgery (I didn't). I had to pay for it like, but it's a fascinating read. Things I faintly remember happening and things that I had no idea about are documented in black and white - it's a relief to be able to read through the sequence of events that led to my diagnosis and then surgery.
Anyway, the thing that got me thinking was the notes from the surgery itself. It made me realise that several people have actually seen my brain. I don't know how many or who they are, isn't that strange? It seems like an intimate thing, my brain. There it is just minding it's own business, never intended to be seen by human eyes. And yet some people have actually seen it. In the flesh, as it were.
When I was little we (my sister and I) stayed at my granny's for a few weeks while my parents moved house. I must have been about five. I remember this book at granny's that I read every night. I have no idea what it was called but it was about a boy (maybe a prince?) who had been tasked with finding something that no man had ever seen before. Not sure why.
After much searching and failed attempts, he finally came up with an unhatched egg out of which popped a baby chicken at the correct moment. My five year old mind was blown. Nobody had ever seen this chicken before. Nobody, ever. I'm not sure why this had such an effect on me, and I hadn't thought about this book for years. But the notion that someone had seen my actual brain brought back the same sense of wonderment.
I wish they'd taken a photo, I'd quite like to see my brain too.
