"Wonderland?"

I am a self- confessed book addict; the aroma of a book, the feel of the paper in my hands, the sound of the turning pages are enough to transport me into another world. And fantasy has been my favourite genre , ever since I laid my hands on my first Enid Blyton. Till today ‘Alice in wonderland’ ranks amongst my most favorite books ever. I read with equal fervor all the tales of vampires and werewolves etc. that my daughter is currently hooked on. But there is one particular series to which I have never been able to subscribe, no offence meant to J.K.Rowlings, but ‘Pottermania’ has completely and totally eluded me.

Of late though, I have started feeling as if my body is behaving like a Harry Potter spell gone terribly wrong. Lets start with the events of about a year ago – I have always prided myself on being blessed with a fair share of the grey matter but Really! Does my brain have to make such a statement about it?! In an average human being there is a certain volume of Cerebral serum fluid which is produced which keeps the brain fertile and balanced. In my case, the brain, suddenly finding itself totally and utterly ignored and unused decided to take matters unto itself and started producing more than twice the volume of CSF giving me a disease called ‘Benign Intercranial Hypertension’ (quite a mouthful – but as my friends say , ‘anything less complicated would not suffice’). This means that the doctors have to stick a needle and pipe into my spine and drain out the excess fluid and keep me on medication until it is possible to do so without surgical intervention (which would require a shunt being placed in the spine to do the job- My daughter’s take on this is ‘after you’ve had your gall bladder and appendix removed now you’ve started having stuff put in instead?!’)

Descending from the brain, lets move to the eyes. Having seen enough of the world around them and since I was not providing them with much variety in any case they suddenly decided that they had seen enough and gave up the ‘vision’ one fine day, leaving me (and my doctors) clueless. There were so many vials of blood taken out for testing so many possible diseases (some found even in the African jungles – must be a carry over of some previous lifetime or a lesser evolved state)that I think it would have been enough for entire body blood transfusion of a needy soul. And after all that when they could find nothing (having even suspected cancer and drilling into my various bones for biopsies) they simply shrugged it off as an ‘auto immune disorder’ with the possibility of recurrence at any given time. And I say Thank You Science!

During the above mentioned period of darkness they pumped in all kinds of steroids into my body and though my system handled it all bravely (other than for the fact that I started resembling a gas balloon ready for take off at any time), it did have its own aftermath. My intestines have now decided that they have had enough of digesting all those bitter pills that are my daily bread and need some fresh air and change of scenery! So they are threatening to step out of my stomach at any given moment of time and are required to be kept under close observation and near starvation lest they find that extra burst (!) of energy.

It doesn’t all end here though because adversity forges its own bonds and my ilia (the leg bone) and the hip joint have become great friends in these times so much so that they have broken all the distances that separated them and though im glad to see this show of solidarity, it is awfully painful for me when I want to indulge in normal human activities like walking or even turning over in my sleep.

And now I wish I had the magic wand of Potter and could mumble some jumbled up words and set it all right, as it were once…or maybe that was my fantasy too..