I got the report back on my 18 month MRI, aka my last MRI, today. Here it is:
Exam Date: 08/12/2008
Examination: MR BRAIN
Indication: Status post arterial venous malformation,
parenchymal hemorrhage. Status post resection.
Technique: Sagittal T1. Axial T1 pre-gadolinium, T1
post-gadolinium, dual echo T2 and diffusion weighted EPI.
Coronal T1 post-gadolinium fat saturation and FLAIR.
Comparison: 07/2007, 04/2007 and 02/2007.
Report: Previous right frontal craniotomy surgical
changes again noted. Beneath the craniotomy defect there is a
focal area of encephalomalacia characterized by mild broadening
of some of the local and cortical sulci of the right frontal
temporal region surrounded by areas of mixed signal intensity
characterized by T2 prolongation and signal void outlining the
grey/white junction and the encephalomalacia. There is a linear
irregular band of contrast enhancement soft tissue coursing
through the area of encephalomalacia. All of these changes are
nearly identical to the study of July, 2007. There is no
restricted diffusion. No new focal signal abnormality. No
midline shift or abnormal extracerebral fluid collections.
Posterior fossa and brain stem normal. Cortical sulci,
ventricles and basal cistern anatomy normal. Mild
leptomeningeal enhancement beneath the craniotomy. Signal void
depicted in the intracranial vessels at the skull base. Orbits
symmetric. Small retention cyst or polyp, inferior right
maxillary antrum, present previously. Paranasal sinuses and
mastoid air cells otherwise well aerated. Corpus callosum fully
formed. Sella turcica normal. Cerebellar tonsils at a few
millimeters below the foramen magnum but within normal range.
Boring, but basically it says “everything is as normal as can be expected”.
You know what’s kind of funny. How things can have flavors, even though you don’t put them in your mouth. In particular, I’m talking about injected medicines. MRI contrast dye is very metallic tasting. It’s put in your arm, and you feel warm, going up your arm, to you shoulder. And then you feel like you are chewing on a piece of metal, except you aren’t. Even more interesting is the contrast they use for an angiogram, which tastes like metal and also gives you fireworks in your eyes!
I really hope to not deal with either of these again, at least for a very very long time.
I got a CD of my medical imaging studies from the past few months today. Well most of them.
It all started with a Sinus Infection, which I thought wasn’t going away. This lead to a sinus CT on 1/9/2007. There was an ‘anomaly’ in the right frontal lobe region, according to the radiologist, but since that’s not really covered in the study, it meant another study was needed. The CT is below, marked where I think the anomaly is (it was pointed out to me by the doctor in the office, but it’s hard to really see… so I could be wrong).
So then the followup, a few days later was a head CT:
Ugh, this definitely showed something not right. Followup to this was an MRI/MRA, which was from an outside vendor, so I don’t have the image. And also an angiogram. I got a second MRI on 2/22/2007, which is below. You can clearly see teh CCM on it:
On 3/1/2007 I had surgery to have it removed. About two months later I had my 4th MRI (the third was the day of the surgery. I suppose if I bugged Stanford Hospital, I could get a CD of it…
So here is my latest MRI, from 4/27/2007:
You can see some “mass effect” in the before pic, the middle line of the brain is clearly pushed to the left. This is back to center in the after. There is some swelling and such, but the neurosurgeon says it looks real good, as does the incision.
