I believe as humans; we can only control 10% of our destiny or time that life gives us and the other 90% is not under our control, but we think the opposite and chase what is impossible. We need to wait for that 10% time to occur and in that time, build / create / lay the foundations of what we aspire our future to be. But the most important thing is, being aware when it happens that we can control that part of life. That awareness to gauge “that period has come” is what I call “timing of life”.
Being aware that the “Timing has come” is like “Being in Integrity” and that does not guarantee success but creates workability, which eventually creates success. There is a lot of theories floating that you can control your destiny all the time or whenever you want it – that is so untrue, and that is just a belief or a confidence-building statement. Take my example; didn’t at all knew what was coming on December 23rd and life’s signal showed red – reboot and learn all the skills back again and wait for the 10%.
The D-Day
As I sat in my wheelchair, the team of doctors were in a hurry to check the MRI from the previous hospital, and that’s when we figured out that they hadn’t seen the report of 21st December. The reason maybe I was a “young patient”, and as I had mentioned in the last article, I was behaving normally when I reached there that night.
So all hell broke loose, and they had a code word which they were repeating now and then, which we assumed to be “there was a mistake, and the situation is critical”. The next step was the doctor wanted to do another MRI, and he said “we would do another MRI to confirm what we are seeing and if the report suggests the same, then you have to be ready for the operation in 45 minutes. And we have also escalated the situation to our professor (At German hospitals, you will find highly renowned and first-rate professors of medicine and chief physicians who head interdisciplinary teams of doctors). We are waiting for his confirmation while we assemble the team for the surgery”. And they got me prepared for the MRI, and at that stage also we were not aware of the criticality facing us.
The MRI report came, and what the doctors suspected was true. I had my vessel / artery blocked under the left ear, which was depriving any blood to the left brain. We still didn’t know the severity then. The doctor came and asked me to get ready for the operation. He said “ I would recommend the operation for all the patients with this criticality and he would repeat this statement at least a dozen times in the next few days as well” and he left to prepare himself. The guy from the MRI came and asked me to lie on the stretcher and took me to the operation theatre (the theatre was like in the cinemas, with the all the works inside) and started rattling off the risks of the operation in German and asked Rekha to translate it to me and made me sign the paperwork. I was in a daze by then without the anaesthetist coming, and I remember telling Rekha that all will be okay after seeing a worrying look on her face.
At this time I want you to think about the criticality. It was two days before Christmas and all the hospitals were running with lean staffing. Then the escalation to the professor, the surgeon and the anaesthetist had to be got from their house and finally, the scrambling they had to do to assemble the team – phew!!
Sport or daily exercise
This article is the only the 4th in the series about my stroke and recovery. From my last article, I have been asking you to share your health goals with your family and friend. If you have shared it, then great but if you don’t have a plan yet, then please create it.
My generation is the last I believe who didn’t have that much information towards health or access to it when we were growing up than it is for today’s generation. We were only told to study hard, get the degrees and work harder, and everything will be fine. Even in school where they propagated, “health is wealth”, the majority took no notice about it. When I see the Germans and their intent for sport (essential daily physical activity), I envy them as I couldn’t build that intent as a child and lost a majority of life not doing any physical activity. The ancient proverb is “A sound mind in a sound body”, but we have changed it to “a sound mind gives a sound body” and disregarded the sound body or necessary exercise or even yoga. So it is not late even now, go and get your plan and be aware of your body.
The experience I can say, but you won’t believe.
I was slipping away to slumber as the anaesthesia was taking its effect, I could see the bright lights of the theatre but vaguely, see the anaesthetist or the guy from the MRI. Their voices were fading, but I clearly remember a voice in my head saying something like “you will come out of operation with a loss of speech”. Till today, I don’t know whether it my subconscious just playing with content (Risks of the operation) coupled with the fact that my speech was slurring at that time or the basic knowledge of a TIA and stroke or whatever, I can’t explain. I have even tried to dissect it as if it was an experience coming from watching many films and series, but what I can’t figure out is, how did it occur at that precise point of time only. There were so many things happening in my head and around me and to be honest, I remember to be calm all the while and me being me, I didn’t think of anything negative; be it to think extremely harmful as me losing my speech.
The Operation
The operation was a success in terms the doctors disrupting the clot and resuming the blood flow in the brain but what we didn’t know was, that during the surgery, I had another stroke and that created the speech impairment and a minor paralysis on the right hand.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in the ICU (the same place I was on the 21st), but hazy from the anaesthesia and looked at Rekha and another friend who had come during my operation to be with Rekha. I wanted to say something, but the words didn’t come out, and Rekha thought it was the tiredness from the procedure. A few minutes passed, and I again went into a slumber. Sleep is something I continued to do for months after because the brain needs to recover from the insult, and I know how much sleep is essential for us, especially after the stroke.
The next one week I was in the hospital and to read about my feelings, and how I went about adapting and let my core and super realistic and confident character take over and make an effect on the team doctors, who now remember me after even 11 months, you have to wait for my next article.
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