Prosopagnosia and Phenology

Prosopagnosia and Phenology

Yesterday, Ned accompanied me to the Royal Marsden for my appointment. 

On the train from East Croydon, he was recognised and greeted by another passenger - also a student at the RCA, but Ned struggled to remember his name..... something beginning with E. This happens frequently to my Ned - he has always been recognised easily, but then he’s spent entire journeys or evenings with someone who still remains nameless by the end of the experience! Ned informed me yesterday, that he has discovered that he has “something wrong with him”, and it has a special title: PROSOPAGNOSIA. This is a medical term for face blindness, and a quick google search revealed that the word comes from the Ancient Greek for ‘face’ and ‘ignorance’ (prosopon and agnosia - if you’re interested). I was completely taken aback - I had no idea that such a condition existed - in all my 62 + years, I had never come across this affliction! Ned said that he was reading a book which mentioned it, and he is now relieved that he can put a name (and reason) to his own social inadequacies ...... when we read the medical description closely, it suggested that some afflicted individuals cant even recognise their own face! Ned admitted that he doesn’t have the full-blown condition , but that he is a mild prosopagnostic.........

Walking through the beautiful regency streets from South Kensington to the Fulham Road, I noticed, to my incredulity, that there was honeysuckle flowering in a front garden, beautifully scented, and normally seen in the summer months - and here we are in November. I explained to my son (never miss an opportunity for educational enlightenment) that this was a matter of PHENOLOGY , the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomenona, especially in relation to plant and animal life (thank you Wikipedia)

It really is remarkable that so many summer flowers are still showing us all their glory - but it really highlights the problems of global warming too. There’s a lot of muttering about another really bad winter ahead - so I’m enjoying the honeysuckle whilst it’s here!

The consultant at the Marsden was lovely, a tall Dutch lady called Marielle Nobbenhuis (google her as well as the long words beginning with P). She told me that I am suitable for robotic surgery - so that’s what she’s going to do on the 22nd, and it’ll take about three hours, and I’ll, in all likelihood, go home the following day. Amazing......... apparently, this surgery could even be performed by a surgeon who might be sitting at a computer in another country! I don’t think that’s going to happen to me - maybe Ms Nobbenhuis will take the laptop into the loo?

I have a couple of weeks now to catch up with stuff at home - make sure we have food in the house, start on my Christmas crafting, and amass reading material and other entertaining forms of distraction post surgery.
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Comments

  1. susan sammonsNovember 7, 2018 at 2:50 PM

    Aaah love Blogger! Much more user and reader friendly. Love the flowers too ��

    ReplyDelete

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