Marked Atrophy, Unmarked Progress

Today I sat in a neurology appointment going over the results of a recent brain MRI.

An MRI I haven’t had—at least not that I’m aware of—since 2009.

No comparison images.
No timeline to look back on.
Just… a present-day picture, trying to tell a story all on its own.

Words I Wasn’t Ready to Hear

“Marked cerebellar atrophy.”
“Brainstem involvement.”
“Possibly genetic.”

And I nodded like I understood.

Because what else do you do in a moment like that?

You don’t fall apart in the office chair.
You don’t interrupt the explanation.
You don’t say, “Wait—are you telling me my brain is still shrinking?”

You just sit there… and decide: “I’ll wait until I get home to cry my eyes out.”

Crying at Home

And I did.

I got home… and I cried.

Not a quiet, single tear kind of cry.
But the kind where everything you held together in public finally lets go.

My chest tight.
My stomach hollow.
My hands trembling.

Because I think I wasn’t just hearing information in that room—I was feeling the weight of what it might mean.

The Images

And the truth is, even in the middle of all that emotion… I was thinking.

Because something in me didn’t fully agree with what I was hearing.

Not in a rebellious way.
Not in a “the doctor is wrong” way.

Just… in a quiet, unsettled way.

For 17 years now, my life has not told the story of decline. It has told the story of rebuilding.

Psalm 27:13  “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

What I Saw (Not What They Said)

I looked at the images.

I am not a doctor. I don’t read scans. I don’t know what all the shades and shapes are supposed to mean.

But I know what I saw—or maybe what I didn’t see.

I didn’t see something that looked broken.
I didn’t see something that looked damaged or harsh or jagged.

It didn’t look… bad.
Parts just looked… smaller.

Atrophy.
Shrinkage.

Even that word feels heavier than what I saw.

Because what I saw didn’t look like something being destroyed.
It looked like something that had… changed.

Body vs Mind vs Soul

And yet, I live in a body that reminds me daily something is different.

Balance isn’t what it should be.
Coordination takes effort.
Speech doesn’t always come out the way I intend.

Swallowing—suddenly became louder in that room when I heard the brainstem controls it.

So now I’m left holding all of this at once:

A scan that says “atrophy.”
A doctor who says “possibly genetic.”
A body that still carries limitations.
A mind trying to reconcile the past and present.
A soul whispering, “This is not the end.”

Questions That Won’t Leave

Because here’s what doesn’t add up to me—

If something has been “shrinking”… why have I been growing?

If this is progressive… why have I regained things I once lost?

If this is my future… why does my past tell a completely different story?

The Part I Can’t Shake

And maybe this is what threw me off the most—

I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was having trouble finding the words.

Not in a careless way.

Not in a dismissive way.

But almost like… what she was seeing didn’t fit neatly into an explanation.

Like she was trying to describe something that didn’t quite make sense in the usual way.

And I sat there listening, trying to follow, trying to understand—

But also feeling this quiet awareness that maybe… she didn’t fully know how to explain it either.

Maybe that’s what unsettled me.

Not just what was said—

But what wasn’t said clearly.

The pauses.

The wording.

The sense that something about it didn’t fit a clean, expected pattern.

And I walked out of there not just with information—But with a feeling I couldn’t quite put into words.

2 Corinthians 12:9  “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness…”

Symmetry and Mystery

And then there’s this word: symmetrical.

It keeps echoing.

Trauma usually shows unevenly, not balanced like what was seen.

Was this always there?

Was it genetic?

Was it just… waiting?

Looking at the scan and hearing the doctor’s words, I was reminded of something I’ve known all along: nothing in my recovery has been normal or as expected.

It’s always been odd, out of place, or somehow exceeded expectations and timeframes.

It seemed as though the doctor was at a loss for words, that there was no explanation for what she saw.

A normal trauma doesn’t show up symmetrical like that.

And maybe… that is exactly what happens when the brain is healing itself.

When it rebuilds, reroutes, and adapts in ways that don’t match the textbooks.

Learning and Hope

But I also went looking.

Not frantically. Not to force an answer.

Just… searching.

And I learned something that stopped me in my tracks—

That the brain can adapt.
That it can reroute.
That it can build new pathways.

Healing doesn’t always mean “back to what it was,” sometimes it becomes “learning a new way to be.”

Sometimes the mystery—the symmetry, the unexpected progress, the way the timeline never matched the books—is the evidence itself.

The proof that recovery can be its own form of intelligence.

That adaptation can create patterns that even doctors can’t fully explain.

Standing in Tension

So now I’m sitting in this tension.

Between what a scan shows…
and what a life has lived.

Between what sounds clinical…
and what feels deeply personal.

Between what might be…
and what has already been.

Proverbs 3:5  “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

Improvement I Can’t Ignore

I cannot deny this:

I have improved.

Not perfectly.
Not completely.
But undeniably.

Step by step.
Year by year.

In ways no image could fully capture.

A Whisper of Healing

And in the middle of all of this thinking, questioning, and processing…

There is something else.

Something quieter.

Not loud.
Not forceful.
Just… steady.

A whisper that doesn’t argue, doesn’t panic, doesn’t rush.

“I am healing you.”

Philippians 1:6  “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”

What It Turned Into

At first, this whole situation rattled me.

It unsettled me.

But the more I thought about it…the more something began to shift.

Because when I look back over my entire recovery—so much of it has never fit neatly into explanations.

There were moments no one could fully explain.

Progress that didn’t match timelines.

Healing that didn’t follow the expected path.

And yet… it happened.

So maybe this—right here—isn’t as out of place as it first felt.

Maybe it actually lines up with everything I’ve already lived through.

Maybe this isn’t confusion…maybe it’s consistency.

And maybe it was a reminder.

A quiet one.

That God still sees me.

That He has not forgotten who I am.

That He is still the one orchestrating every piece—even the ones that don’t make sense to anyone else.

Even the ones that don’t have clear explanations.

Even the ones that leave doctors searching for words.

Because my story has never been built on what made sense.

It’s been built on what God has done.

 

Not Everything Can Be Measured

I don’t know how this fits into medical terms.
I don’t know how this translates onto an MRI.
I don’t know how to prove it in a way the world would accept.

But I know this: Not everything real can be measured on a scan.

Here I Am

So here I am.

Not with answers.
Not with conclusions.

Just honesty.

Processing words that felt heavy.
Holding questions without neat endings.
Standing in the space between what I’ve been told… and what I’ve lived.

And maybe that’s where faith actually grows.

Not in certainty.

But right here—In the middle of the unknown.

Where I can say:

I don’t fully understand this.
But I know what God has already brought me through.

And I’m still here.
Still walking.
Still speaking.
Still becoming.
And maybe… still healing.

 Be encouraged. 🧡