December 2018, it was winter time.
Cold dry winters of Gwalior, after five months of receiving a bone tuberculosis diagnosis, the prognosis was this:
"Agar aise hi chalta raha, shayad aage aap kabhi chal nahi paye"
"If it goes on like this, you might not be ever able to walk again"
When I was a teenager, I mustered the courage to dream just one dream. It was to be independent and live by myself.
And I lived that dream, spent the four of most heartwarming years of my life in Bengaluru.
And right when I started to take that dream a notch up, things started shattering.
December 2017 : I started experiencing this sharp pain in my ankle
January - August 2018: More than ten doctors tried but could not find what's wrong with my ankle
August 2018: Bone Tuberculosis was diagnosed
December 2018: Doctors gave up
Fast forward ⏩
August 2023:
I can walk more than eleven kilometers in a day, I have lost more than fifteen kilos in the past two years.
At one point, I reached a hundred and eighteen kilos. That was the highest I ever weighed. Bone tuberculosis had devastating effects on my physical and emotional health.
I could not walk for almost two years, chained to bed - I had little that could offer hope and little was enough. It always is.
There were moments of devastation, I could not go to the loo by myself. I fell down in the loo once and that shattered my spirit into pieces for a while.
Losing all mobility when I was barely twenty-one is not something I ever imagined in my weirdest dreams.
But it happened, I survived - I lived and I will thrive.
There are times when we are hit with darkest of the darkest events in life, unimaginable stuff and when it's happening to us, we put ourselves in this cardboard box of survival and it feels like how will we even get out of this.
You will only know the how once you are out of it and sometimes, sometimes for years you will have to hang in there and have faith. Faith will give you purpose, purpose will help you find meaning and the ways to get out of that box or just break box.
Because I have been these boxes of helplessness from time to time, I know nothing can take of the weight of gravity that you feel in your body.
Just hang in there, let the universe surprise you again.
Disclaimer: I am no health expert and I am on my own health journey, figuring out what works for my body and mind via error and trial. Always reach out to a trusted health expert if you have any queries.
While I was on my recovery journey from bone tuberculosis, a lot many well-wishers told me that Rifampicin (TB treatment drug) has a lot of side effects. I could not process it then but only once the treatment was over I could feel the side effects of these allopathic medicines.
I started dreading all medicines after taking ten pills a day for a year and endless injections, I just could not.
And I knew the road to recovery would be wrong, especially in India where while we do have subsidized healthcare, the bridges between different stakeholders is missing.
Being healthy means health in all it's aspects and western medicine looks at health from a targeted lens of solving symptoms. Which is life saving in critical cases. But in terms of lifestyle, you just keep taking more medicines to save yourself from the side effects of the previous dosage.
Recovery meant a full detox and that takes time. I have tried soup diets, I tried walking, I tried working with a personal trainer. Everything works is its own way, to improve your overall health you keep trying what works for you and then once you find it, you stick to it.
Since March this year, I have been on a diet of fruits, vegetables and Daliya (broken wheat). This has helped me a lot in feeling healthier.
Overtime I have also dabbled with meditation, I love listening to the classical ragas or body scan meditations. I have also resorted to the help of these Ayurvedic herbs:
Triphala - for better digestion
Jatamansi, Brahmi, Shankhpushpi, Ashwagandha - for better sleep
I guess the newsletter for this month has been a proper rant, guess that's okay too.
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