The Formula

The Formula

I had a happy childhood my father was a doctor and worked at the local hospital and would often show my pictures of the human body and how all the bits worked, his main work was on the brain and I remember he gave me a book of the brain and as I turned the pages it would show each part, what it did, and how it worked

I remember thinking I wanted to be a doctor one day, I don't remember too much about my mother, I know she had long blonde hair and blue eyes but sadly she died when I was five, I learned when I was older that it was a brain tumour that killed her

On my sixteenth birthday, my father retired as a top Neurologist and as much as I loved him I wanted a place of my own, I was attending a college in Oxford trying to get a degree to allow me to become a doctor just like him and needed to be nearer to the college

 I found an apartment not too far from him and would visit him each day Dad had always been a bit of a fuddy-duddy and he had always been a little forgetful and I felt if I was near to him I could still make sure he was eating properly  but still have a little independence in my own place

My father had studied cancer for most of his working life, and although retired he still continued with his work on the subject, he had written many books on the topic and had been working on a project to reduce the size of cancerous tumours, day and night he would lock himself away in his laboratory and sometimes work all through the night then one damp dreary December day he burst from his lab with a cry of, eureka

He told me he had formulated a potion and told me he had tried it on rats and it worked after more trials he would slowly start giving me the treatment,  I suppose I ought to explain that it is because of me he had dedicated so much time to this work.

Around a year ago when I was twenty I started to get these awful pains in my head, my doctor told me it was probably migraine and prescribed some tablets to take when the pain became really bad but they did not help at all and after six weeks I returned to my doctor who sent my off for some tests at the local hospital.

The results devastated me I had developed a tumour in my brain and unless something was done it would grow to a size that might cause my death, after many months of treatment including surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy I was told there was no more they could do and sent me home, this was the driving force in my father's research

Should I have taken the advice from my father and waited until he had made further studies and more tests had been carried out before I took that first dose?  I will never know, but what I did know was that the pain in my head was getting worse each day and so I made the decision to take a dose, I managed to find the key to my father's laboratory and let myself in.

There were papers notebooks and beakers all over the place, on one wall a large blackboard covered with calculations and chemistry formulas but after a quick search I found the formula in among some glass retort's he used for distillation and poured a measured dose, it tasted foul, but I thought as long as it took my pain away it would be worth it, I carefully put the bottle back where I had found it just in case my father suspected I had been in his laboratory

I never told anyone about me taking the formula and now it is six months since I started taking it, the latest result from the hospital was that my tumour had almost completely gone and was told I needn't go back for any more tests, for six months, at my last weigh-in at the hospital they made me 140 pounds and 5 foot 2 inches

After my six monthly check-up the hospital confirmed that the tumour had gone, and the bonus was that I had lost weight had I was pleased to hear I had lost 10 pounds but the strange thing was that I had also lost height, they made me 5 foot, that is 2 inches less than the last time

I never thought anymore on the subject thinking the hospital had just got it wrong.

But now the effect on my body is frightening me I was shrinking each month now I am only 4 feet eleven inches and it is beginning to scare me.

As I lived on my own my father was unaware of my predicament I just told him of the results I was getting from the hospital were fine, My father passed away a month ago but not before telling me he had a reversing drug in case something went wrong when he was ready to try out the treatment, I know he meticulously kept records of all his work but I never knew where he kept them

I am now a middle-aged woman and still shrinking I now have to stand on a chair to open the door to my father's office I had to find his book that contained the reversing formula before I shrank any more.