Date: 13 October 2007
Age: 13

"i'm sorry, it's not good news."
The doctor was clicking his pen as he sat on top of the sleek wooden desk in front of me and my mother.
"what is it Dr. Khan?" My mum's already high-pitched voice squeeked nervously when she said his name.
"india."His voice sympathetic "You have what's known as Parry-Romberg syndrome."
I atually had something wrong with me. I stared at the ground until my vision went blurry and my cheeks were getting wet by the cold waterfall of tears.
"i'll just give you a minute." He touched my shoulder, cupping it in his hand on the way out of the big, modern office. He went to let go but I trapped it there with my own hand.
"what is it?" My voice shakey.
"Parry-romberg syndrome is a rare condition characterized by slowly progressive deterioration of the fat and soft tissue of half the face."
"In english?" I blurted not understanding one word of his explination.
"India there's no way to explain it nicely" He put qoutation marks in the air "In english."
I raised my eyebrows at him. Nice or not. I still needed to know.
"An easy way to explain...okay...the right side of your face is going to stay 13 while your left side is going to grow and get older." The doctor ran his finger underneath my right eye "It may get hollow, you may get seizures, you may get migrains,epilepsy, hair loss, the list goes on...Im really very sorry."
"What?"My mum sniffed "causes it?Is it contageous?"
"No, it's not contageous and we don't know -for sure- what causes it." He sighed "I wish i could give you more information. Really."

After discussing possible plastic surgery in the future, after hours of questioning of the symptoms of the rare disease. Future scans and what not. Afterwhich mum and I headed home to spread the oh, so lovely news.