As I was growing up, I never considered school as very challenging -- or very academic. My parents never put emphasis on my academic performance and would routinely pull me out of school for church events and anything else when school attendance got in the way. We moved so often, and I went to so many different schools (four different high schools) that it was difficult to established relationships with teachers, or even other students. Consequently, education was just kind of there. I never studied. I never took any homework home. I had no goals other than finishing high school and getting a job. Well, that happened -- but so did Viet Nam and the most reasonable way of staying out of Viet Nam was staying in school. So I worked and attended a community college for a few years.
Somewhere along the way it all started coming together. I gradually grew enthusiastic about learning and found that I did it well. I finished a Bachelor of Science degree and applied to graduate school. I finished a PhD/MD program, completed my Residency, then started practicing. Even while practicing full-time I completed a MPA degree in Health Services Administration.
I had gained confidence in my intellect and realized that my limits had been self-imposed.
Although I never sought out any quantitative measure of my intellectual capabilities, it was occasionally required for various things and I was pleasantly surprised that the assessments were always above average. That is, until recently.
As part of the melanoma work-up and monitoring, I have had several Brain MRIs and have always felt mildly irritated when the evaluation has always turned out "unremarkable." I realize this is a good thing -- anything "remarkable" would probably be bad news about metastases -- but there's still just a little sting having my brain being described as "unremarkable."
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