An inside look at your thoughts

Hardly had the final fullstop fallen into place on yesterday’s account of witnessing that extraordinary modern-day phenomenon of being able to see my own heart beating than today I was able to see my own hands - from the inside. And even more astonishingly, my brain. 

Amazing, surely impossible, and yet there were the images in this morning’s mail, on a disk containing x-rays taken after my bike accident last month.

There was the left hand, and the right hand, bones, joints, outline … and astoundingly the brain in great detail.

Overwhelmed

Apologies if I seem overwhelmed by the extraordinary views of me from the inside, as it were. But I am.

When you’ve lived for a few decades under the will of the brain, it is astonishing to see one's lord and master, the driving force, in the flesh – or almost as good as.

The virtual x-ray photo album came by courtesy of an extraordinarily efficient side of the NHS, a side that we never usually hear about.

I asked at St George’s Hospital a little earlier this month about the chances of seeing the X-rays that the medical experts saw after my ugly bike accident.

Hoping for a quick glimpse

I hoped I might be allowed a quick glimpse over someone’s shoulder in some hospital laboratory.

I was directed to the X-ray Department, filled in a simple form, and at home today accepted a signed-for envelope from the hospital. 

And there was what the experts had examined, all filed neatly on a dvd, packaged within a neat Philips IntelliSpace PACS MediaViewer. Amazing!

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com