Healing,Hope & Resilience

  I would joke around saying that if anyone gets a headache, it proves that they have a head. But jokes apart, the headache was so severe that I blacked out, and apparently, I was smacking my head wildly. I know that I couldn't see, hear, or feel any touch. I cannot recall about my smell and taste sensation. Luckily my son, who was helping me in the kitchen at that time, helped me sit on a chair as I was losing my balance. After a few minutes, I came back to my senses and felt completely normal. The headache was gone; I seemed to have become alright in a jiffy and interestingly, found myself surrounded by my family. They were surprised that I recovered so quickly from this episode and suspected that something serious may have happened. There started a series of tests. My husband suggested that I lift a heavy object, and my son asked me to climb the stairs. They asked me to put my signature on a paper. I could do all of this with no problem. We were convinced and happy that I could ...

  During my stay at my mom’s house, my condition was on a path to recovery. Since my home is not far from my mother’s, I took the opportunity to make a brief visit and check if I could still play on the veena. It was certainly not at my former capability, but I was quite happy that I could still play. One busy morning, as my mother was busy with the usual morning chores, I wanted to be of some help to her. So I pleaded with her to offload some work, and she let me make a rice dish that involved mixing cooked rice with vegetable gravy. I just could not mix it. This was shocking to me as I presumed I knew how to do this simple task.  oh!!!! My fingers and my wrist just didn't move like I wanted. The next day, I tried to make a dough out of wheat flour, and this also turned out to be an ordeal. I realized that as my verbal skills and memory improved, my motor skills were deteriorating. It dawned on me that the memory issue was just a part of the problem. There were a lot more pro...

  I was rushed to Apollo within 10 minutes and got diagnosed with a stroke and my right side was impacted. My face was also partially affected . This meant that there was a clot in the left side of my brain. The cause was DVT ( Deep Vein Thrombosis )   For context, in 2012 I was diagnosed with DVT upon my return from a trip to Manali with a swollen ankle. I was prescribed to be on daily blood thinners going forward. Later, in 2017, we went on a family trip to Ladakh. Before the trip I went for a routine check- up with a vascular surgeon who ill advised me to discontinue blood thinners as I no longer needed it. Nevertheless, I continued the medicine till I came back from the trip. But gradually, I reduced the frequency of taking blood thinners and finally stopped taking them. While I cannot remember anything that happened immediately after my stroke, my dear ones experienced it vividly: I was told that it was a herculean task bringing me to the hospital. It seems I was beatin...

  It was September 8th, 2019 a normal Sunday and at around eleven twenty in the morning, I was busy with household chores. My house help did not come that day, so I had to wash all the vessels. I did it comfortably. I had persistent headaches in the last 8 days and also suffered from breathlessness during these headaches. We assumed that my BP would have fluctuated and bought a new BP Meter to check if my BP was fine. I was happy that my BP seemed normal (110 / 72). We celebrated the Ganapati festival just 3 days before at home. We follow a ritual to prepare some sweets from the coconut kept during the Puja.  I called my mom to find out how to prepare a sweet ‘Sajjappa’. My mother told me how to prepare it, all in detail, but somehow,it did not register well in my mind.  I had barely finished preparing breakfast, which we all had. My children were relaxing in their rooms on the first floor. My husband and I were watching his favourite movie. While watching the movie, I as...