NO LIMITS by Prof Ms Ketna L Mehta
“In spite of my repeated maneuverings the glider refused to obey. It was hurtling towards the ground.Heart pumping overtime, I thrust my right leg out, like we had been instructed to, to stall the downward rush, but failed. I hit the ground on my behind with a searing thud”
bracing mouthful of fresh air rushed into my lungs as the glider took off after a little coaxing and cajoling. “Its good to be alive, I thought to myself, as I manipulated the bird to the left where my pilot was waiting. It was the 12th of February, 1995, a Sunday, and the last day of a month-long paragliding camp in Virar (in Thane district).
I was an adrenaline junkie to the core! In between running my own firm – Ubique Consultants, which handled market research projects, I found time for adventure sports in and around Mumbai. In fact, my consultancy had organised such adventure sport packages — programmes aimed at enhancing team building spirit, decision making, and risk taking abilities—for middle level managers in the corporate sector. I myself had participated in these programmes where we went rappelling, white water rafting, and leap frogging over rock faces (an activity called ‘chimney crossing’).
But this was my first stab at paragliding: I had joined the camp at the insistence of a friend, Swapnali, an ardent outdoors person like me. It had been an exciting month, glorious hours spent soaring in the deep blue sky. Today, on our last day, we were attempting the Tandem gliding, where two people do a flight together. I am getting pretty good at this, I thought happily, as I floated.
ON A WING AND A PRAYER
It was an exceptionally breezy day. Our instructor had warned us that the flights may be called off if it got worse, but just before my turn came, the wind subsided a little so I took off.
Moments later all hell broke loose. The wind, which had dropped to a mere whisper, suddenly picked up while I was still in the air. In spite of my repeated maneuverings to the left, the glider refused to obey, and instead turned a whole 180° to the right! It was also hurtling towards the ground. Alarmed, I tried to press the brakes. I did not want to land on the bed of sharp pebbles that I could see in the distance, or get entangled in one of the many thorny trees that dotted the side of the hillock. But the strong gusts had made the mechanism useless. Heart pumping overtime, I thrust my right leg out, like we had been instructed to, to stall the downward rush, but failed. I was coming in too fast.
I hit the ground on my behind with a searing thud.
For a brief moment, my back and hips felt like they were on fire. Then, everything went totally numb below the waist; not a sensation to even indicate that I owned a pair of shapely legs, though my back continued to throb.
I groaned in near delirium, though I remained fully conscious throughout, while the other participants gathered around anxiously, tossing guesses as to what to do next. Blame it on ill luck or lack of foresight, but there was no doctor on the camp. Finally it was decided that I be transported to Virar where a medic could be found, though the chances of that seemed slight, it being a Sunday.
The ride to the town was excruciating even with numb legs. Fortunately an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Riten Pradhan, agreed to have a look at me. He tapped me for broken bones and asked, “When did you last have water? Have you passed any urine since then?” after I had indicated the area from whereon there was no feeling. Gravely he continued. “Where do you live? Do you have any relatives, give me their numbers.” My alarm must have been evident even through the grimaces of pain because he gently explained. “We need to prepare you for immediate surgery. I suspect you have a spinal cord injury. That’s why you can’t feel your legs.” I promptly supplied him with Dhaval and Nina, my siblings’ numbers. Preliminary investigations over, he agreed to accompany me to the hospital, as the others were all total strangers to Mumbai.
I had been reduced to a complete automaton. All I could do was pray and wordlessly follow orders. Dhaval and Hemubhai, my brother-in-law (and a doctor), took charge when we reached Dadar and I was taken to the Hinduja hospital. Once there I was quickly wheeled into intensive care while Dr. Pradhan went in search of spinal surgeon, Dr. Shekhar Bhojraj, who luckily was in the hospital at the time preparing for a workshop.
After a careful examination and queries on how the accident came about, Dr. Bhojraj reiterated Dr. Pradhan’s diagnosis: I needed immediate surgery. Apparently, because of the fall, my spine had compressed in one place and bulged out at another. The bulge had caused’ a fracture in the Thoracic-12 region. The bone fragments in turn were pressing in on the nerves and cutting off the sensation carrying channels that post messages to the brain. That was why I could not feel anything. The doctors had to operate quickly to stabilise my spine. Plates were inserted in the area to prevent damage to more nerves. Dr. Bhojraj performed the operation the same night.
THE AFTERMATH
I woke up the next day to find my family fussing over me. “Good morning. Do the stitches hurt?” enquired Dr. Bhojraj solicitously. I smiled weakly in reply, and he continued, “You will have to lie prone for a while, till the wound heals and we can take out the stitches.” Just then my eyes went to a tube snaking out from under the covers. “That is a catheter. It will take some time before you regain any sensations down there; till then the catheter will do the job of draining out urine,” he said.
This was how my recovery was prognosticated, all in piecemeal terms: Have the stitches healed? I’ll have to start wearing a brace to support the injured back. Are my kidneys working fine?’ I was given the task of measuring my liquid intake and comparing it with the output. A physiotherapist would soon be assigned, I was told, to start working with me to try and recover some sensation in. my lower body.
The doctors kept me busy with these preoccupations and never actually discussed the ultimate repercussions of the accident.
It was left to Nina to break the news to me. A fortnight into my recovery, I was put on an intermittent catheter (an improvement from the permanent one) and I had soiled my bed sheets. One of the nurses who was changing me casually remarked, “Paraplegics ko to yeh sabse badi problem hain” My brain snapped to attention and I waited impatiently for Nina’s visit that evening. When she finally came, I related the nurses’ conversation. Knowing instantly that prevarication was useless, and I would not be content with anything other than the truth, she gave it to me straight on the line:
“Ketna, the doctors have diagnosed your condition as paraplegia. They say that the nerves below the fractured spot are either totally damaged or traumatised. Physiotherapy will help get back some of the sensations, but the extent of the damage is not known as yet.
“But I know you can prove the doctors wrong!” she hurried on. “Show them you will get back to what you were before the accident!” For a moment, I went blank. Paraplegic! Isn’t that the term used for people who are confined to wheelchairs…? What does that mean? That I will not be able to walk? I could not bring myself to accept this fearful thought, but seeing Nina’s anxiety and anguish at being the carrier of such sad tidings, I assured her, “Don’t you worry, Nina, as long as my brain is working, I will be fine.”
COMING TO TERMS
But after she had gone and I was left alone, I couldn’t delude myself with false cheer any longer, or pretend to feel positive when my primary emotion was one of devastation. What will I do? I thought miserably. I cast around for some solution. Maybe I can get back to painting. I loved to paint and make caricatures—the walls of my room in the hospital were plastered with my works of art, much to the nurses’ horror—but a busy professional life had left little time for pursuing such indulgences. I could help edit Nina’s homoeopathic journals (Nina was a trained homoeopath). That could become a full time occupation. Maybe things will not he so bad after all.
So what if I cannot do prestigious market research and liaisoning for corporates! Look at what Stephen Hawkins has achieved! Even a vague plan like this helped me get a good night’s sleep, ready as I was to clutch on straws.
Of course I was only thinking about occupations and careers, things to keep me busy. But life is far more than a job. And I could not even begin to comprehend all the challenges that would be in store for me. A brand new paraplegic not only has to struggle with the physical limitations but also attune her mind and psyche to accept and live with those limitations. Was I upto the task? Only time would tell.
I needed constant attention and resigned myself to being helped in and out of bed, shunted around: When a situation is beyond your control, it’s no good fretting about it, I told myself. How thankful I was for my practical bent! I was never the one for breeding about the whys and wherefores. I im- mersed myself in the task of making a presentation for CIDCO. Before the accident, Ubique had landed a coveted market research project from the company and I was anxious to get started. In fact, I was contemplating on making the presentation right there in the hospital conference room.
Fifteen days after the operation, the stitches came off, and I could now sit up wearing a brace. I was allowed to move around on a wheelchair, and Sharon Vakharia, the hospital physio, also started me on passive exercises for my thighs, where a little feeling had returned. She told me that she was trying to revitalize some of the dormant nerves so that they would begin functioning and help me to walk atleast with crutches. This was another ticket to freedom. She wheeled me around and introduced me to other paraplegics in the hospital, and I made a couple of good friends, Arlene D’Souza and Nitin Goyal. Some day we plan to go trekking in Kasauli (a getaway in Himachal Pradesh) crutches and all. I’m a great believer in the power of the mind. Willpower has helped some paraplegics climb the Himalayas, cross the oceans…
But I still had many miles to go before I got there.
HOMEWARD BOUND
Back home, the process of adjustments began anew. It was just a month after the accident and, in a sense, I was as good as a baby, needing assistance in every little task. The hospital had provided me with accouterments – a thick plastic brace to support my back while sitting or standing, calipers for the legs. But the first time I stood up with the help of these gadgets, it was almost like a free fall. I felt I was floating in mid air, and would fall down any moment.
Till then, the prospect of leading life in a wheelchair had been just a scary thought. I had not quite grasped how much those four wheels would change my life. Like most new paraplegics, I had been preoccupied with the larger issues of life: What will I do? What would happen to my career? and so forth. But it is the small stuff, the simple, day-to-day routine tasks that one does without thinking and now can’t, that frustrate you and thrust the fact of your physical limitations in your face, again and again.
I am the kind of person who would rather climb up the stairs than wait for a lift, or walk instead of waiting around for a bus. How could I bear living such a restricted life? I anguished. Sure, I had every kind of help imaginable. A full time maushi to bathe, feed, and dress me. An attentive family at my beck and call. But all this did not, could not, make up for the loss of independence that I had enjoyed up till then.
Perhaps it was this realisation that lit the fire of determination in my heart, to be on my own, to not let my disability hamper my lifestyle. So, where once I merely tolerated the physiotherapy. I now became an active and willing partner in the exercises.
Milka, a physio, took over from Sharon at home. Her strategy was two pronged —one, to strengthen my thighs so that they would support my weight.
And secondly, to develop my upper body, so that I can perform simple tasks like turning in the bed, sitting up, standing and balancing. Till then I had lain passive on the bed, using ropes tied to window bars, to turn on my side. At best, I would be propped up on the bed itself with the help of pillows. Sitting freely, getting off the bed, and moving even a few inches were totally out of question.
I was beginning to appreciate all the movements that our body does automatically, which I was now forcing mine to do.
Despite my new found enthusiasm, I found the exercises excruciating. Day after day, I would sweat it out, first using my own body weight as resistance, then, as my strength upped, with weights tied to my legs, my arms.
The doctors had warned me about incontinence, though I was never told that it would be lifelong. Now the ab exercises that I did were also aimed at controlling my bladder and bowel movements. But I had to be prepared for episodes of incontinence, embarrassing though they would be.
Fortunately for me, adult diapers had just come into the market, which I could wear while going out, so even if I leaked my outer clothes would not be soiled. Having two doctors at home helped too. Both Hemubhai and Nina explained the importance of clean catheterization. (In the hospital I had been taught how to use the tube on myself.) Hygiene was all important, because if I did not sterilize my catheter regularly, I could lay myself open for serious urinary tract infections. For the same reason, I have to be on Ditropan, a medication that nips UTIs in the bud, lifelong.
PATH TO FREEDOM
Four months into my rehab, signs of some life getting back in my legs emerged.
An adjustable but cumbersome walker with wheels was procured once I learned to put one foot in front of the other. But climbing up and down the stairs was still an absolute no-no, which kept me housebound because we lived on the first floor. I could only get out of the house if someone carried me back and forth. Till then Hemubhai had been carting me around, even doing an occasional jig around the landing to show off his “weight lifting” prowess. But personally, I was mortified each time I had to clamber on his back. C’mon, I must have weighed at least 55 kg!
One day I was telling Dr. Pradhan about this when an idea struck him: “Ketna, why don’t you adjust your walker for the stairs so that the front rungs stand lower than the back ones?”
Then you can balance the walker on the steps and hop down. Ask someone to stand at the foot to catch you, just in case. The simplicity of the idea enthused me. Why not, let’s try it, I thought. By now a very renowned physiotherapist, V.C. Jacob was also helping me with the exercises and making very good progress. So, the next day itself, as soon as Jacob came over, I put forward Dr. Pradhan’s idea to him and he agreed readily.
But the task was easier said than done. Because when the moment came, and I stood at the head of the stairs with the walker adjusted, and Dhaval waiting at the bottom ready to catch me, I lost my nerve! “I’ll fall,” I screeched. “No, you won’t,” Jacob and Dhaval assured me. “Yes, I will, and break my neck as well,”
I retorted morosely even as I gingerly tried a baby hop. Before I knew it, I was standing on the next step. A small spark of hope lit in my heart.
I continued, and the same day I had hopped down the entire flight before exhaustion forced me to stop.
Even then, it was a whole month before I could actually make it up and down the stairs on my own. In part this was due to the extreme pain that accompanied each step. To stabilise my legs. Jacob had ordered me to wear calipers which extended from mid- thigh to the foot. So I could not bend my knees and climb like everyone else: I had to swing my whole leg, place it on the step, then swing the other one around to join it. The effort had beads of sweat running down my face, and my knees suffered perpetual pain due to the hyper extension. Jacob explained that they were taking the entire load of the leg, and he taught me how to press down my knees while lying down to strengthen the quadriceps (front muscles of the thigh).
Learning how to take the stairs was, in a sense, the actual key to my freedom, For one, it indicated that my injury was partial (Jacob called it paraphrasis or partial paraplegia), and that some active nerves remained which could be worked upon. Secondly, it literally opened doors for me! After months of incarceration, where the only outing was a trip to the hospital and back, I could now contemplate an evening out with friends, even getting back to work. I was elated.
One of the first trips I made to celebrate the occasion was to go buy a gift for Dhaval. That was when I had my first taste of the tough world outside that makes no leeways for paraplegics. A close relative, Meera bhabi had driven me to the Breach Candy area and thoughtfully parked the car right outside the shop, when a policeman came up and started yelling, “Arre, turn kya karta hain? Dikhta nahin yeh no parking zone hain! Gaadi hatao”! I drew his attention to my walker and calipers and said “Bhaiya, tumko dikhta nahin ki hamaare ko problem hain? Dekho, hum road kaise cross karega?” That made him back off. I knew then that I would have to fight for my rights at every point.
MEMORABLE MILESTONES
Every day, I became a little more independent. From the confines of the bed I moved to the kitchen, where the only concession made for me was a small stool to rest on if I got tired.
Within a few months of the accident, I could whip up a dinner on my own for the whole family! The next hurdle was going out by myself, say; to visit friends. This meant climbing down the steps, hailing a taxi, all big tasks. I learnt to think positively. For every action, be it walking to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, or to stand at the head of the stairs and jumping down, I noticed that the day I told myself I can’t do it, no matter how much I tried, I really couldn’t make the trip. But the days I thought I could, I would be able to. I had to believe in the power of the mind.
My family stood staunchly behind me, ready to help when I needed it, but at the same time ensuring that I did not get too dependent on them. “Go on, go take a cab,” Dhaval would say, “Why do you want someone to come with you? Ask the driver to help you inside when you need to get out, someone will be there to hand you the walker.” He kept encouraging me to make small trips outside the home on my own, till I lost my fears.
Work, thankfully had not slackened, otherwise I would have been devastated. A month before the accident, I had met a reputed management consultant G. Shanker, who ran his own firm in Chennai. One day, when I was barely a few days out of the hospital, I received a call from him saying that he wanted to meet me. I explained my situation to him, warning him that I would not be of much help, but he replied, “We’ll see about that. I’ll meet you tomorrow, when I land in Mumbai.” I was puzzled, but could make nothing of the conversation.
Promptly at 11 the next morning, Shanker arrived at my house and after some formal chit-chat, he began outlining a field research project which he wanted me to oversee in Mumbaiand Pune. He promised me a retainer, and said that I could hire all the research students and qualified researchers I required for the job. And I was back in action! It was as simple as that.
I had badly needed that mental stimulation. Using my faculties for something worthwhile, something creative, had always given me satisfaction, and I knew they would help me get through this tribulation too, even if I had to rely on crutches.
Throughout my rehab, I never said no to any assignment that came my way. I did typing jobs for non-profit making journals, edited articles for my sister’s homeopathic magazine, even helped people write their CVs.
The idea was to gainfully utilise my time. Jacob encouraged me to interact with the patients at the Paraplegic Centre, of which he himself is a consultant, and I derived immense satisfaction from teaching the inmates how to overcome small hurdles like catheterizing on one’s own. There is an inexplicable pleasure in helping someone out.
Slowly, through my own consultancy’s contacts, I began getting editing work from some journals. I started a magazine. One World – Voice of Paraplegics, that addresses the various issues that affect paraplegics. I had not forgotten my experience with the police. As a member of the Rotary Club, even today I take part in their access committee activities, which campaigns for buildings to be made accessible to the disabled. We have succeeded at several places including the Shanmukhananda Hall and most police stations in Mumbai.
This year, I surpassed my own expectations: I travelled all by myself to Thailand to attend a conference on empowerment of disabled women, on the invitation of Javed Abidi, director of Disabilities People International. It was a six-day trip for which I had to make several preparations including learning how to use a commode (at home I use a bedpan). I restricted my intake of water during the flight, and things went smoothly.
It was wonderful to see how understanding the hotel staff there were, of our special needs. Adequate arrangements, including wheel-chairs and ramps were laid out, and the housekeeping staff was always available to wheel us to the various venues. Compare that to the callousness you see here, in India, and you’ll realise what I’m trying to say!
PUSHING BACK THE LIMITS
It has been 8 years since my innocent adventure took such a horrifying turn. Expectedly, life has not been a cakewalk. It had taken awhile for the fact to sink in that I was no longer footloose and fancy free like before, that I cannot enjoy the luxury of impulsiveness and spontaneity like everyone else. I miss out on the incidental interactions, of meeting someone in the hallway to discuss an idea, of arguing over a concept in the canteen, the very stimuli that I used to derive from people around me. Having to rely on friends and family daily can also put a crimp on one’s lifestyle. But while there are many things that I can’t have, and several things that I can’t do, there are a million others that are within my scope. I may not be able to go trekking in my current situation, for example, but there are no limits to the cerebral adventures that I can experience! I’ve discovered a latent talent for writing that I plan to exploit.
Life is full of possibilities.
Of course you may rightly ask: What are my feelings toward adventure sports today? Have I been put off them completely? After all, they are the reason for my situation today. But the true answer is NO.
Not only would I encourage others to take them up, I would try them myself too, some day. Yes, even with my condition. There are paraplegics abroad who are rappelling on wheelchairs, even bungee jumping. I may not take up such extreme sports, but I do intend to do exciting things. I cannot let a single freak accident colour my view about life or take the sense of adventure out of living.
After all, what are limitations? It’s all in the mind: There are countless able bodied men and women out there with all their faculties intact, who will still not do the things they can or want to, because they let fear handicap them.
How different is their situation from mine? We are all operating from within certain limitations, real or imaginary, and it’s up to us to break past these barriers. If we don’t, we will be well and truly handicapped. Like I said, it’s all in the mind…
As told to ANJALI TRIPATHI, Health &Nutrition, Sept 2003
