Portrait: Ashish

This is a heart-wrenching story about Ashish Gupta, a normal 29 year old enthusiastic youth, living in Ranchi, a place in Jharkhand state of India. He did not know what he would go through in the near future and nobody had expected it.

A little bit about Ashish

On 1st August 2022, Ashish went through a brain hemorrhage caused by an Aneurysm. He initially felt nauseated and complained of headaches. After a moment, he fell unconscious and had begun slipping into a coma. 

There were no symptoms as such about the illness. He would feel stressed and complained of high blood pressure but he would always recover from those episodes so we never felt like anything serious was lingering in the background. We were unaware.

 

Symptoms Ashish has had to navigate 

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The major distress Ashish faced after the brain injury was slipping into a coma, lack of body movement, loss of speech and bodily control. Other symptoms included the inability to eat food for which a tube was inserted through his throat for a liquid diet along with problems with understanding things and also losing urinal control. 

 

Ashish’s recovery 

Ashish underwent treatment initially at Orchid Hospital just after the Haemorrhage. However, the hospital requested to move him to another hospital with better facilities as the situation was slipping out of hand. He was then moved to Orchid Hospital in Ranchi, Jharkhand, and was under the observation of a neurosurgeon. He underwent surgery and received post-surgery rehab and physiotherapy under the guidance of other health specialists.

 

What Ashish enjoys doing 

Ashish enjoyed bike riding, music, traveling, investing in the stock market, and playing cricket. As his father runs a medical shop, he was always curious to learn more about medicine, and help him run the shop as well.

It is heart-wrecking to see that he is unable to do anything about the things he enjoyed.

 

Support network 

Amidst the crisis, we are blessed that our major support came from family and close friends. His sister Shefali, works in an MNC in Gurgaon city, Haryana miles away from home. His Father runs a medico shop while his mother is a homemaker.

 

The highs of his recovery so far 

The successful part post-surgery is that he is slowly moving some body parts on his right side. He is also uttering words slowly. However, without rehab and physiotherapy, recovery has not been assured. It will take him around 6 months to live a normal life or at least come back to normal.

 

The lows of recovery 

The dip came when we were told that he will need one more surgery which was scheduled for September 2022. This surgery involved the removal of water which got logged in the brain post-first surgery. The dip also is being felt highly with our financial situation the expenditure.  

That is a big amount to arrange for a middle-class family in India.

 

Advice for other families 

The most important advice we would give is to be strong. Yes, it is hard, difficult, and turbulent to navigate but the human body can endure and recover anything nourished through love and care and proper health support. Do not overlook any symptoms or health issues whether physical or mental. Be financially prepared not only for yourself but also for others. You will never know how many people you are inspiring through your journey. The more you take care of yourself, the lesser the chances of being diagnosed with a life-threatening disorder.

Our courage came back when we saw Emilia Clarke talking about Aneurysms in her interviews and sharing her experiences candidly.

She was only 24 and she had faced it twice. Her story itself has been a great inspiration for us when we had lost all hopes of watching our loved one live a normal life again. She went on to become the most powerful character ever written in the history of Art and Cinema. Her journey itself is a decon for us to keep working hard and bring our brother back to normal life.

We request every reader to reach out to their loved ones every now and then. Not out of fear, but to shower love and kindness whenever you get an opportunity. We never know what battles they might be going through.

We are sure when Ashish will come back to his normal life, he will be immensely proud and grateful to each and every one that helped him in his journey towards a healthy life. We are grateful to SameYou for giving us a platform to share our story. We hope Ashish inspires all the ones who are going through the same hardships. Yes, he will bounce back and you never know, that might be really soon! Miracles happen every day and we have witnessed one with Emilia.

Hope and Peace. Thanks.

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