Blog

How can I forget that day? The big day. The big reveal. My parents unveiled the big “surprise” they had been planning for so long for me after much deliberation with the doctors. They told me that they were planning to shift me to Mumbai, India for further treatment and intensive neuro-rehabilitation. At this point of time, my mind was like that of a child. So, upon hearing this it got very upset and refused to accept the idea of going to Mumbai, for reasons one can only assume. My parents assumed it might have gotten upset over the fact that it had to leave its friends behind in Dubai. Let’s not forget that for my brain, I was still going to high school and leading a normal life. I highly doubt it would have been considered normal to take off to Mumbai in the middle of your final year! Meanwhile, the doctors and nurses were making preparations to stabilize me enough so as to give me the green signal and certify me as fit to travel for a flight journey. Making a person in my condition fly was going to be a daunting task. My parents completed all the formalities with the airlines. The airlines’ rules decreed that I be accompanied by a doctor. My aunt, who is a doctor, flew all the way from India just to accompany me back to Mumbai. The airlines rules also decreed that I must travel in first-class only. WOW! Travel in first-class in a position where I cannot enjoy it, fancy right?! That too in one of the impressive airlines of the country! By now, the swelling of my brain had started to subside, but it was being replaced by a swelling of another kind – a hydrocephalus – accumulation of the cerebrospinal fluid inside the brain. For safety purposes, they arranged a helmet that I was to wear during the journey. From the hospital to the airport in the ambulance, from the airport terminal to the first-class cabin in a wheelchair, and then… then what? My aunt, an average sized Indian woman, along with the help of the first-class chef, a giant of a man, probably a bodybuilder, lifted me together to transfer me to the seat. It was understandably a smooth takeoff, journey and landing. I mean, it was first-class after all. Before flying to Mumbai, arrangements were made by my uncles and aunts in Mumbai for an ambulance that would take me to the hospital upon landing. The real game was about to kick off… everything that was until now, was just the lightening before the thunder…