OK I'd be willing to bet, that do to the title, this blog entry gets more views than any of my others. But this isn't about sexy or revealing pictures this is about incredible science working with medicine.

Last week I had a CT and CTA of my head and neck. Just to check the status of my arteries at six months after my strokes more than anything. After the procedure we asked if we could get a copy of the image. To be honest we thought we would get one image that looked like an xray. When we went to records and made the request the technician said she would also give us the images from every CT/A I have had since my strokes. Well I have had roughly 6 or so. Therefore 6 images in an oversized envelope is what were were expecting.

BOY WERE WE WRONG!! My wife picked them up when we got a call that they were ready. Far from 6 or 7 images they handed her 10 CD's packed with thousands of images and each CD had software loaded on it to view the images.

To say the least I was completely blown away with what I saw. Of course it was at its most basic an image that looked to the inexperienced like an xray. But in reality you could manipulate the image and rotate it to any angle, it was like a 3D model. You could pick a point, inside of me, and then just by using the scroll bar move through all of the images kind of like moving through me a slice at a time. I'm not sure how "wide" each slice is but I would guess less than a millimeter. I just don't know how to describe it to do it justice. I felt kind of uneasy because I was seeing on a computer what I look like inside my head and neck. Because we had some prior explanations and my sister in law has some medical experience with these things we were able to see my damaged vertebral artery and how over time it had changed. We could even see the actual areas of my brain where the stroke was. I think the report called them "infarcts".

I used to wonder why it sometimes took the Dr. who interprets these things longer than I thought it should. After all I thought the Dr. was just looking at one image. I had no idea that the computer created a 3D image of everything inside me and that actually the Dr. was looking at enough data to fill a small room if it wasn't on CD.

It is kind of humbling to realize the years of training and dedication that all the doctors, nurses, technicians etc bring to the table in diagnosing me and treating me. Now add to that the probably thousands of people who design, develop and test these incredible machines and software. If that doesn't boggle your mind add to that the size of the investment it takes to create these miracle machines and software and train the people who use them.

For this blog entry I'm not Alpinejunkie or AJ I'm just ..... Awestruck!