Change in Perspective to Change Life

Yes, you guessed it right. I was in the ICU ward. During my fourteen days in the ICU before gaining consciousness, I was on ventilator support and on constant sedation. Apart from this, my eyes were also covered to prevent them from drying and causing irritation to the brain from visual stimuli. Before you read on, I must do this one little thing – Disclaimer notice: I don’t really have many memories of the first week after I regained consciousness. Whatever I do know, is from whatever my family has told me. During the week post acquirement of consciousness in…

Well, well, well, where were we? Moving to the ward, right? Files were exchanged, the nurses’ handover was done, a bed shifted, that’s all!? The shift doesn’t seem like much, but it meant a lot in terms of opening doors to my recovery. Almost celebration time, it seemed. I had just got myself upgraded. I went from the ICU on the 1st floor to the Neuro-Ortho ward on the 3rd floor! A completely new level! Going from a small ICU cubicle to an entire room just for myself (with a window and, wait for it, a view!). Up until now,…

Writing a blog like this is like playing a video game on difficulty level ‘Insane.’ It is nearly impossible to remember all the key events in their chronological order at any given point in time. Well, also because my memory likes to play fetch with me. An umpteen number of significant events can happen during months of hospital stay. Hence, the need for LOG5 as a flash back entry. Back when I was still k.o. in the ICU, the doctors recommended my parents to keep communicating with me, despite me being unconscious. My parents also strongly believed that they had…

We were in the ward, right? I almost lost track, thanks to log 5. Phew!! It was only after moving to the ward that I came to know what had happened to me. Up until then, my mind just knew that something went wrong - I'm in a hospital, duh! I can’t move my left side; and so what if I'm in the hospital? I will be out in a jiffy; must be nothing serious! To my utter disbelief, my family told me that I had suffered from intracerebral bleeding – Brain haemorrhage. Or in the layman’s language, bleeding in…

How can I forget that day? The big day. The big reveal. My parents unveiled the big “surprise” they had been planning for so long for me after much deliberation with the doctors. They told me that they were planning to shift me to Mumbai, India for further treatment and intensive neuro-rehabilitation. At this point of time, my mind was like that of a child. So, upon hearing this it got very upset and refused to accept the idea of going to Mumbai, for reasons one can only assume. My parents assumed it might have gotten upset over the fact…

It was after our brief but necessary stay at the first hospital that we took the next big step in my recovery process. After our successful venture with hospitals, we were starting to get comfortable with the whole hospital stay feel and it was quite clear that it wasn’t going to be a today-admission tomorrow-discharge affair. During the week at the first hospital we were simultaneously filling forms, completing paperwork, formalities and getting prepped for a shift. This was going to be another shift in space-time reality for me. We were about to move to another multi-specialty hospital in Mumbai…

Many People have asked me to describe my entire hospital stay in one word/sentence - Enlightening but not for the faint hearted. Anyway, back to the point; the new hospital. We did start off with a bang and kept the momentum for the complete stay. We were able to coax some movement from my then immobile left arm with the help of not so feeble electric shocks via a device called tens, as mentioned previously. Not the most exciting and fun experience folks - kind of what you would imagine inmate torture techniques feel like. My hand took quite a…