Should I Brush The Cat In My Head?

I'm beginning to wonder if either all the doctors that I am seeing are really vets in disguise or if I am simply just totally loopy; and here's why.

It all started with the ubiquitous TLAs (Three Letter Abbreviations). Actually, it all started with the "Brain Mapping" but that's only two letters when abbreviated and four when its been a bad boy and its mother is being formal and calling it Brain Electrical Activity Mapping (BEAM) so it doesn't get a whole lot of discussion in the medical literature.

They, the people with a lifetime's supply of white coats, wanted me to have a CAT (Computed Axial Tomography) scan. "OK", I said, "but you are aware that I am allergic to pet dander, right? So I'm pretty sure I'd be sneezing a lot more than I do now if I had a Moggy in my Noggin." We then had a CAT scan and I got the usual "that's interesting, but we need to do some more tests." response.

So next up was an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). I've been there and done that. Apparently they needed some more practice so we did another one with contrast. At this point I would have thought that I'd have heard if something was really wrong or, even, right. But, no. Apparently there was still some money left in my insurance fund so we moved down the alphabet a bit.

We then had an MRA, aka a friend of the MRI known as an Angiogram. Now, I've done tons of MRIs before, but the MRA was new. Let me tell you, it's not a whole lot more challenging than a MRI so if you have to chose between the two, then take whichever one is closest. Trust me on this.

Anyway, from the CAT scan, the MRA, the MRI, the contrast, the non-contrast, they decided that they still were not 100% clear and they wanted to correlate them with an EEG. But, let's get back to the zoo.

At first we talked about a SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) scan but I suspect it had too many letters so we settled on a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan.

Here's where it gets weird.

Now the doctors are telling me that they are not only looking for PETs but they also want to quantify the amount of tangles and plaque that there is on my brain. Now come on. Is that some way of saying I am not cleaning my brain well enough? Is that what those holes in your nose and ears are really for?

That was Tuesday's joy. Yesterday I went for another EEG. They tell me that the plan is to take the CAT scan, the EEGs, the MRA, the MRI, the PET scan, mix in the Brain Mappings, apply LORETA (Low Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography) transformations to this data and then we'll come up with a really good 3-D image of my brain in all its glory.

Then what?

Is it like going to the dentist when they give you a free toothbrush and now I'm supposed to brush the plaque off the cat in my head? When I do that, will I then be able to remember all the things I've forgotten over the last few months?