THE MRI EPISODE

It's already January and the new decade has begun in right ernest. Iran and Iraq stunned,Trump at his clownish best,Venezuela ,Hongkok in protest,JNU students happy as ever,Australia burning ! Not a bad start at all.   

        I am straying off the track even before the beginning of the beginning.ok,let's start and give it a go.It was not that long back ,may be an year or two,the sun was going down to sleep and into the greyish dusk of the day,it was year end for sure and weather was easing around the twentyfives with a strong palakkad winds of makara maasa making merry.As usual I was standing in front of my full blown mirror attached to my cupboard upstairs ,staring at the ugly, old,devilish stranger facing me.The crooked smile reminds me of decades of sufferings,shame,the bickerings,the never ending fights and agony of being just 'alive'. This daily routine of self enquiry, advised by Ramana,is yet to bear any fruit.As this intense staring is in progress,all of a sudden , the image of the stranger and the back ground settings including the table and windows and the walls started shivering in a slow pace.Whats happening.As is the habit I switched on to the panic mode and run around to the balcony.The vertigo is fast disappearing and I am on steadier grounds.All this in just 10 seconds flat.
        I take three long and deep breaths and return to the normal doctor's anxious mood.whats gone wrong ?Was it a normal attack of vertigo.No.The room was not revolving.It was just a shaking sideways.Could it be a minor seismic tremor at ottapalam.The IMD has not recorded any that day. Then we have to consider more serious problems at hand.Even if my patient narrates such an episode, I will be concerned about the affairs of the brain .Could it be the first sign of a glioma, I mean a brain tumour ? Possible,but why ME ? How dare it attack a doctor,leave alone an ophthalmologist ? No,no,it's impossible.I have seen such episodes in patients recovering from head injury.No.Can it be a transients attacks of partial blockage of the Carotids or vertebro basilar insufficiency ? Can a cervical spodylitis induce such symptoms ? It's highly annoying and taxing my brain. Anyway to be frank, I would have advised an MRI for my patient.No I won't go to a doctor.Its anaethma to me.Better take a tranquilizer and go to sleep ! And so did I. Next day everything seemed hunky dory till evening and the same thing happened when I was in self enquiry before the mirror. It disappeared when I went out.
     Now I need to consult a neurologist and an MRI will be a natural bye product. Nothing to worry, I am going to be a case study for the doctors and I am doomed. The tranquilizer dose was doubled and the sleep never blessed me.
        When I am in a fight or flight mode,though I prefer the latter,the current situation recommended the former. Systematically I analysed the data.The problem always happens before the mirror.So the investigation should start with the room.So with great resolve I went to the room and examined.Nothing special.
       Then I stepped up to my mirror and concentrated on the bewildered stranger in front.Nothing happened.The fear factor gone, I faced him again .This lasted 5 minutes without any episode. I have become bolder by now and concentrated on him again.Within nother 10 minutes the shaking began .No ,I am not giving up. The sideways movement  of the image and background was unsahikkable.I was turning dizzy and lo I could see the door holding the mirror shaking mildly as the palakkadan breeze went through the little opening of the door and vibrating a weebit and the mirror taking the vibration in turn ,  depending on the amount of breeze passing through the door to the cupboard.
 A sigh of relief surged through me like the makara kattu and I sat on the bed in bliss.Never Trust a Doctor Again especially if it's ME.