EduTechnorama

Many of my friends know about this already, but this is in effect a way for me to approach this issue in hopefully a dignified and interesting way rather than depressing. If ever there was a cat to be let out of a bag let this be it:

I’m missing part of my brain about the size of a lemon.

Here’s the proof. I had a resection of a brain tumor about 5 years ago and this was the scan immediately following:

http://oldblog.spiritualslideshows.ws/archives/000363.html

During this time of my life I was still in my undergraduate program in software engineering at Arizona State University. I was paying my own way entirely through school and was fairly stressed out trying to fit school into work and work into school full time. It was very strenuous but I also miss it in some sort of strange way. Anyhow, as a result I had to finish my program with part of my brain missing that helped to control and govern attention. As most students trying to fight their way through school with half their face covered just trying to survive, it was an eye-opening experience dealing with attention problems for the first time and then finding cliche methods to try and get my brain to wire up to be able to finish my degree. Which happened in due time and finally after 8 years of being in school.

Then after I was done and finally graduated, I felt like there was still something missing so I went back to pursue a masters degree now having realized I had a life-long love of learning and a new appreciation for it.

After the initial diagnosis and prescription of treatment which includes medication and observation, I was going to see my oncologist about every 4 months or so with squeaky-clean results. Nothing showed up on the scans. Until…last month I went back for my routine inspection and I just had a feeling something wasn’t right. The scan showed tumor tissue invading normal brain tissue once again.

At any rate, this blog is going to change slightly to reflect what a grown person with part of their brain missing appreciates about life and the secular side of neuroscience and learning…something I wish to continue to learn about in the years ahead if given the opportunity.

If you wish to see more of my personal views and values concerning this subject, I’ve had an incognito blog running at http://www.spiritualslideshows.ws that hasn’t been updated in years. It was never meant as a means of getting attention…just a way of writing down my thoughts and experiences of someone who appreciates learning on all fronts: secular and spiritual.

I go in to surgery tomorrow but will post some information about what had gone on in the meantime. You will likely see some crossover in posts between the two blog because in my opinion the line between learning on a secular level bleeds over into a spiritual one from time to time. Not knowing what my audience is on this, I’m just going to write what I will and see what comes of it.

Filed under:
Brains, Neurology by Jeffrey