Grossly Unremarkable

Sometimes medical science is full of fantastic technology, and sometimes it pokes you in the arm with a sharp stick covered in mold.

I’ve had sinus problems for years, but the past few years it’s been much worse. For a while it felt like seasonal allergies, but they failed to go away in November. Constant stuffiness followed me to France, and still lingered when I came back home. Not a head full of mucus, just the kind of stuffy you expect trying to make last-minute reservations with a four star restaurant.

Right, enough of this crap. Time for some science.

My last two doctor visits of the year included an allergy test and CT scan of my sinuses. These are vastly different styles of medicine. The CT scan is a marvel of modern medicine, using x-rays to create a 3D image of the body’s internal structure. Allergy tests use needles covered in stuff you typically wash off of your hands after doing yardwork.

After several pokes in the arm with a sharp stick, it turns out I have some mold allergies and a mild response to tree pollen, but not strong enough to cause all of my sinus issues. So now we get to look at the empty spaces inside my skull. Well, the doctors get to look at the pretty pictures. All I get is the clinical transcription, describing a mild obstruction of the right nasal cavity and a right concha bullosa.

Nasal cavities and nasopharynx are unremarkable. Mastoid air cells are clear. The images portions of the intracranial substances are grossly unremarkable.

“Grossly Unremarkable” … sounds like a two-star Yelp review of my sinuses. But at least science found something wrong with head, just different than what my friends expected to see.