Healing,Hope & Resilience

A few days after I was discharged, I returned to work. Now, I had to add an additional hour of occupational therapy every day amidst the COVID-19 shutdown. Besides this, my husband's health was deteriorating day by day. This proved to be a bigger challenge for us. Since my first stroke, I was already living with Anomia where I could not recall the actual name of an object; my confusion between a pen and a watch. This lingers on to this day.   Using one working hand to go about my daily activities was a whole other saga all on its own, especially when I had always been a right handed and my stroke now affected this  dominant hand. During my first recovery phase, I received consistent help at home. But this time around I wanted to be self reliant. Saree was the official dress code, and wearing it came with its own set of challenges. Initially, I would get confused as to how to hold the saree. It would be either upside down, or sometimes flipped left to right. To wear it wi...

  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...