One sweet day

"They say the two most important days in a person's life is the day you're born, and the day you discover why you're born." - Viola Davis

The day I was born - December 13, 1984 and the day I discovered why - November 29, 2008 - the day of my stoke. It was a horrible day, a tragic day, a devastating day, a day where I lost everything, but, I know, sadly, that one, singłe day will forevèr define who I am, and who I will be. As a result of that day, however awful it was,  I now know why I'm here and what I can bring to this mad world. Sharing my story, my fight, my pain is what will make me one insanely experienced and sympathetic doctor or an honest and passionate writer. Its kind of freeing to know, without any shàde of doubt, what exactly you are meant to do. Think about it, I can say the most cliche line to a patient, 'I know how you feel', and ACTUALLY mean it. I'll have automatic 'street cred' and the war scars to prove it. Now, just because I see the possible value of my experience, it does not discount AT ALL the fact that I would give anything, my heart, my soul, my life, not to have this experience at all... I wish it all away every night, but face it all again every morning, with a little more disppointment, a little more fear, and a little more hatred than the day before. But, maybe, from my pain, someone will find peace. From my fears, someone could gain perspective. From my hate, someone could find inspiration. From my fight, someone could find strength.  But. I refuse to be a martyr, to sacrifice everything I am, everything I have, everything I want, to lead a life of suffering, so others may gain something from my experience. That's a bit too selfless, even for me. I deserve to be a little more narcissistic, and less masochistic. So, I'm waiting for a third day, and boy, will it be one sweet, sweet day. For me, if this third day doesn't happen, the first two days won't even be worth it. This third day, will be the day I beat this thing, the day I regain some semblance of my life, the day this whole, horrible nightmare is behind me, the day I win. But with every frustrating second, every disappointing year, every painful nightmare, this days seems to be slipping farther and farther away, out of my grasp, out of my reach, out of my sight. Though my sweat drops during the day are full of fight, my teardrops at night are full of hopelessness. I realize this may be out of my hàndß, no matter how hard I try. Then, whose hands is it in??? Tim Tebow, obvi. ( JK! But i do <3 him). But like Tebow, I believe in that "hopeless comeback".(Good Read)

When there's nothing going right for you an your team, when everything seems hopeless, when you feel like your fighting for a lost cause, something happens, and you win. Whether that something is divine intervention, positive, strong beliefs from you and your team, or just dumb luck, that something is magical. So here goes nothing. With a hail mary pass, a trick play, Jesus, Allah, Ram, or just some luck, me and my team (what up Rajanis!), will win.

Skyscraper

The other day, a few of my good friends from Charlotte were hanging out with me. They were getting ready to leave and I said "Thank you for coming!" in an appreciative yet robotic-like fashion. One of my friends started laughing and replied, "Why the formality?! It's still us." I knew he was right, they had been over hundreds of times before my stroke, and they would be over hundreds of times after it. It was still them, yes, but... Was it still...me? I have been dragged through dirt, mud, garbage, and hell the past three years. I have felt hopeless, helpless, meaningless, powerless, and useless, after living 23 years that were utterly and completely full. In a split second, I went from cloud nine to rock bottom. What. A. Fall. I went from smiling all day long, for quite literally no apparent reason, to being completely unable to smile physically, to being unable to smile emotionally, to finally being pretty apathetic to the whole smiling thing. And it's not like one tragedy in your life makes you invincible, untouchable to more tragedy. Nope. I have been beaten down so much by the world, whats left of me? Has it all changed me?
Three years ago, I had an ugly stroke of reality. The world I had once believed in, the world that I thought beautiful, and just, the world that I even wanted to save, had revealed to me it's cruel power - it didn't need saving, I did... Then, I went through an ugly breakup. I always used to see the good in others - it was probably my greatest gift, and my most tragic flaw. I didn't do this knowingly, but now, looking back, through my slightly more critical lens, I realize I did only see the best in others. I realize now that people can seem so good on the outside, but capable of being so bad on the inside. I've decided to instead, trust in my dog's opinion of others, because I dont trust my own. One bark = like, two barks = dislike. He pretty much barks 50 times at everyone, so our system still needs work. Or it just means that he loves everyone (like mother, like son)... And all the while, I've been going through this ugly rehab process. Before all of this, I was enamored by the medical world, the science, the knowledge, the service, etc. but being a patient now, I've felt how much we dont know at all about the human body. Ive heard the phrase 'I don't know' more times than i can count. I think I've been disillusioned and disappointed by everything..But then I read this: "Sweetheart - this pic's for you babe. Just to remind you of my smile - how you make me smile. How even if you're so far away - I smile when I think of you 'cuz you're truly my angel. The one who I NEED to see at least once a year or I'll lose my mind. People like you rarely exist babe and I'm so so blessed by your presence. I'm humbled by your unselfishness, your sweet personality, your unwavering support, and your unconstitutional love. I <3 u forever." That was a message written to me by Rajul, on the back of her senior picture, that she gave to me TEN YEARS AGO. But its EXACTLY something she would say to me now! I think that means I'm still me (and Rajul can still write so beautifully, it makes me melt). Yes, my skin is thicker, my mind is wiser, m blood is...thinner? (daily baby aspirin, baby), and my heart is careful, yet my soul is, thankfully, forever unchanged. So i guess I've grown, not changed. Sorry world/fate/destiny, I know you tried really hard, but I guess I'm still the same ol' G... You can take everything I am, you can break everything I have, like I'm made of glass, like I'm made of paper..... Go on and try to tear me down, I will be rising from the ground, just like a skyscraper...just like a skyscraper.

This is why I'm hot

I really hate how inherently selfish the whole rehab process is... Think about it... Millions of hours, millions of therapists, millions of dollars, millions, no billions, of miles on the road from therapy to therapy, and millions of prayers from everyone, all for what?¡ All to get one person a little, tiny bit better. Hours upon hours are spent on this person, from doctors, nurses, therapists, trainers, family and friends. But to thrive, or survive, in this rehab process, you really have to milk all of this. You have to become, well, selfish. You have to fancy yourself important enough to deserve it ALL, otherwise you will go insane. And I'm trying! I'm going hard in this rehab process with a single, arguably selfish, goal in mind. But, I'm not so good at this whole 'being selfish' thing... Like, I love the attention I'm getting from friends and everyone, but then I remember why I'm getting the attention, and then I start to hate it. When my mom used to tell me that people were praying for me at the temple, I appreciated the sentiment, but absolutely hated the attention, especially the reason for the attention. I'm not good at solely thinking of myself and my needs, I'm good at thinking of other people's needs. Before all this, I had the luxury of being utterly selfless. It was really nice, and though it felt natural at the time, I realize now that it was a luxury. Service was my life - sometimes literally (just ask Megan!), but I was proud of it, so proud. I cared about the kids I worked with more than I did myself... I know that sounds silly, but it was true. I may have given them my love and support, but they gave me a wonderful purpose. From my college essay, medical school essay, to various speeches, one line has been the same. A quote by Mahatma Gandhi, "In a gentle way, we can shake the world." I wanted to save the world... But as Lamar Odom said on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, "Wanna make God laugh? Tell him you plans." Yea, my plans definitely made him laugh, and he threw me a hell of a curveball. Then, about a year ago, a doctor approached me after therapy, and told me she had a patient who was a 19 year old girl who just had a stroke and was really upset. She asked if I could stop in and talk to her. I was overwhelmed and unprepared, but so anxious to help. I immediately went to hr room, but I had no idea what to say... I knew she must feel so alone, so I told her my story. I knew she must feel so freaking scared, so I told her the one line that made me believe, "Everything gets better from here." The whole room was in tears, including me and her. I came to check on her two weeks later, and she was doing so much better, it was so exciting, she looked so happy. Her doctor told my dad that it was either something I said or a coincidence, but she started improving after I talked to her! What!! I felt something at that moment, something great, something I hadn't felt in so long...needed...instead of hopelessly, embarrassingly, desperately needy.... It was so freeing, to forget my needs, and focus on someone else. Over the last few months, I've been getting emails from friends and strangers saying that my story and blog have helped them in some way. I don't know what I'm doing or saying, but I figure I'm doing something right. Because of everything that has happened, I have a voice, and people are listening. And sometimes I'm actually helping people other than myself. So now, I think I have an even more wonderful purpose. Basically, I'm hot cuz I'm fly, you ain't cuz you not. Jk! You are all fly, it's just that ibe2fly4u ;). So maybe I can still save the world, or at least shake it a little...

Killing me softly

So, I don't look like the person I was before... Emotionally, I'm pretty similar except now with a 'Sasha Fierce' side to me and sometimes a "No me jodas" type attitude. But physically..where do I begin?! I mean I look like me, but I look a bit...off. When I say I was paralyzed from head to toe, I mean literally from head to toe. My forehead, my cheeks, my lips, my tongue, my throat, my trunk, my limbs, EVERYTHING. I could only blink my eyes which sounds like such a tiny thing but it probably saved my life because without the blinking, everyone would have thought I was brain dead. Now, all my muscles have come back, but not quite  right. Some are weak, some are slow, and some are just confused. This all makes for one awkward looking girl. First off, my legs aren't strong enough yet, so I'm confined to a wheelchair. But surprisingly, that is the least of my aesthetic problems. I have a 6th nerve palsy of my left eye so I can't really move my eye left; and my eyes aren't aligned exactly, so I look like I have a lazy eye all the time. My facial muscles, my neck muscles and my trunk muscles are still weak, so my face looks weird, my neck droops to the side, and I slouch. My arms lie limp in my lap, and I have a few visible scars. Worst of all, what alienates me the most is that I can't speak properly. Little kids stare at me like I'm a monster. If I try to talk to them, they literally run away. It kills me. When I try to go out in public, people say things to me or about me that make me want to vomit or just die. It kills me. Just the other day, my dentist said to my dad right in front of me, "She looks good today! She looks alert!" just like that, even though she meant well, she killed me. With just a few words, I felt like I was stabbed in the stomach. Before my stroke, I was strong and confident enough to handle anything, but now just a few words or a few stares can make me self combust. Don't get me wrong, I have optimism, I have positivity, and most importantly, I have hope, but it is SO fragile, its like a house of cards, one blow from caving in... When people see me, they see I'm completely broken on the outside, and then assume I must be broken on the inside too. If only the whole world would just read my blog ;) then they would realize my brain is in fact, far from being broken. But theres one person who, in his eyes, I am complete. He doesn't even notice my flaws, if anything, he sees them as assets. His unconditional love is exactly what I need to bring me back to reality, to bring me back from the dead. I'm talking about none other than my puppy, Duke :) I know it sounds silly, to rely on a dog so much, but honestly, whatever works! And it does really work. I cant really talk, so I never have to discipline him. I can't really use my legs, so i cant take him on walks (laziest puppy ever, he hates walks). I can't really use my arms, so I don't ever put him in the crate he hates. I'm a sloppy eater, so he loves sitting in my lap and discovering hidden crumbs on me. I cry a lot, and he LOVES licking my tears, and I need his distraction. Riding in my lap on my wheelchair is like a roller coaster for him so he doesn't let me go anywhere without him. That boy would follow me off a cliff if that's where I was headed. So it works! For now, he is enough to pick me up when I fall, but I fear the day that won't be enough anymore...

Allah ke Bande

http://chuppandee.blogspot.com/2009/06/allah-ke-bande-translation.html

Karma is an interesting thing... Of all My beliefs in Hinduism, it was the one that made the most sense, that made the other beliefs have some meaningful context (like dharma, reincarnation, etc). You could say it kinda held everything together for me. Karma is the concept that events happen in your life, whether good or bad, based on your previous actions or deeds. Makes total sense right?! It makes you feel that there is some cosmic justice in the world. It's even backed up by the laws of physics, which you know made my science-ey brain happy! 'every action causes an equal and opposite reaction.' karma is the closest thing any religion had to fact. I mean c'mon, how else do you explain LeBron James with his insanely talented Miami Heat losing the championship bitterly to the underdogs? Karma. But then I had my stroke, and all my beliefs and facts, became a lie. While I've made mistakes in life, I don't think any of them deserved even a week of this hell. Many people believe this is all because of karma and that I'm paying for something from a past life. Umm, ok... What do you say to that? Anyway, so by past life, they are implying reincarnation - which is, after death, your soul comes back to life in another life form. Now, I'm going to tell you all something...you will probably think I'm crazy, but I think I've seen my soul. Not just a peak, but a long, never-ending stare. Let me explain. When I had my stroke and woke up in the ICU, I had a horrible, horrible epiphany - I had lost everything. Everything. My whole body, my voice, my mind, my family, my friends, my life, my career, my everything. All I had left was my soul...everything else ha been stripped, and all that was left was what made me, me. And what I saw was a scared, sweet, innocent soul, untainted by vindictiveness or revenge. If this was the same soul inhabiting past lives, I highly doubt it could be capable of doing anything that would deserve this kind of hell.like say I was a lion in my past life, I would totally be like Simba from 'The Lion King' and sing and dance all day instead of fighting and killing. So, karma, why aren't you true?!?! I need you to be true. I need to get completely better for any of this to make sense, for there to be some kind of balance in this world. I think we all need that balance to get through the terrible things in life... I've always loved this song 'Allah kè Bande' but only recently looked at the words. It's about angel who truly learns to fly, only after he loses his everything, his wings. It says, 'it is only in the scattered pieces of your dreams that you will find the meaning of Allah's will.' Wow, so lost my everything...check, dreams scattered...check! so maybe I will find meaning in all this...and truly learn to fly.

Time after time

Time after time-Javier colon

I'm scared...terrifed...lost...cconfused...nervous...and worried, really worried, about something everyone worries about, but, argueably, I have a lot more at stake...I am scared about my future. After many doctors told me I would eventually get better,my burning question was “When?” All of them would say the same thing, time after time, “I don’t know, it will take time.” That answer infuriated me, but at the same time I felt that this answer was protecting me. I so badly wanted an answer to that one question that was drowning me, but I was scared to hear an answer I didn’t like. I was scared they would tell me 20 or 30 years or maybe they would say 3 or 4 years, I didn’t have any idea, I still don’t know. So I started to hang on to every time limit my family members would say in passing. First, it was 6 months. I thought I can do 6 months.. I really believed I would be better in 6 months, believed it with all my heart, even though after 5 months, my muscles were barely working, I was still believing some divine intervention or miracle would come and fix me before 6 months. But it didn't, and I was crushed. My hope, my world, my universe came crashing down with a vengeance and took my spirit along with it. But I woke up the next morning, gathered myself, and started all over again, all my hope back at ground zero, ready to be built back up again...only to come crashing down again in 6 more months, and every mîlestone after that until I woke up this morning and realized it had been 2.5 years. And still no miracle. Time after time, I am disappointed..How much freaking 'time' does my body need!?!? I thought maybe I could find some answers online... Big mistake. All I found were details on other young stroke survivors who didnt have half as much damage as me and were perfectly fine in a few months or details on other locked-in syndrome patients who were dead in a few months. It has been 30 months and I'm far from being 'perfectly fine' or dead... So what the hell?!?! Had I run out of time to be fine again or am I just a breath away from death? So many awful questions about my future. I want my future to be happy, I want to fall in love, I want to get married, I want to have kids and raise a family, I want to become a doctor, i just want to be happy. They are such simple dreams, but right now, they feel impossible, like they are on another planet, in another universe. Is life even worth living if you can't pursue these basic dreams? I've totally missed out on life enough already! I'm in my 20's, the prime of my life. I should be out with my friends, partying and dancing; instead I'm always at home, drowning in a pool of constant humiliation, loneliness, and fear. Time after time, day after day, nightmare after nightmare, I always, always fear my future. Most of the time, I try to focus on the present, and keep fighting, but it's always at the back of my mind, silently eating away at my spirit. So I desperately want an answer to the question "When?!" but I only want to hear an answer I like and I'm terrified to hear an answer that will demolish my dreams for the future. So will my future hold my dreams or my nightmares, will it hold good luck or bad luck? You know what, eff that, I'll make my own luck.

Don't you, forget about me

Everyone is moving on, and I'm still standing still. Everyone is out conquering the world, but the world is still conquering me. Everyone is living their lives, but I still am struggling to have a life. Part of me is happy that all my friends and family are insanely successful, but it makes being here at home really lonely. I'm scared that with everyone moving on, they will forget about me. I don't always hear from people, so maybe some of them have already forgotten about me. I don't think I'm really forgettable, and maybe people are too busy or too scared to be in my life, but isn't that just as bad? It still leaves me feeling alone. I mean, I don't blame people. If I was living my life successfully, I would be hard presssed to stop and turn around to look back at a friend I left behind. I know my story is really sad, so maybe it's hard for people to even think about it because it's just too sad. But when people visit me, I am so overcome with happiness to see them that I'm all smiles and ignore that big elephant in the room. Most of the time, I try to put on a happy face when people are around, well, some of the time. Now I don't talk about this much because it is kind of humiliating. But when I had the stroke, I lost the ability to inhibit my emotions(Pseudobulbar affect). So, even if something is a little bit funny, I laugh, and if something is a little sad, I cry. If I get a little frustrated, I also cry. When I start crying in front of someone, I then get mad at myself, which makes me cry more. Then I get scared that I'm scaring them away, and that makes me cry even more. So it's an awful cycle that I try my hardest to fight. The last thing I want to do is scare people away. It has slowly gotten better, but it's still another obstacle I am forced to deal with. But i don't need people to visit me, i just want people to know it's still me. I want people to be comfortable enough to just email me or just send me a little message. I know that is hard because i type slowly, so i don't always reply. But i'm there and i'm listening. I am amazed at the strength, loyalty, and care some of my friends show me on a daily basis. I can't believe they can face me with all my sad problems, and actually be there for me. I am so surprised by their bravery in standing by my side and supporting me. Like Rajul, for example, who is my number one fan, supporter, cheerleader, and angel(it is funny because I think she fulfilled that role long before my stroke). Or Chaya, who is strong enough to talk to me about some of the hard stuff and shares with me her concerns as well as her love. Or Nisha, who makes feel like I'm the only girl in the world, hehe. But for
real, she shows me endless happiness, fun, and love. Or my wifey, aka Krishna, who is always there to share everything with me. Or many, many more unbelievable friends. Or my brother, Anand, who is my ultimate best friend and hero. I need them in my life to remind me I'm not alone. I need them in my life to remind me that things will get better. I need them in my life to remind me that I am still needed. And most of all, to prevent what I'm most scared about, I need them in my life to make sure I don't forget myself.