Dancing with Life (12 page)

Rajiv Vrat

Rajiv was the youngest of four siblings in a regular New Delhi family. Apart from being good in academics, he was also a good soccer player. In 1996, when he was just sixteen, he suddenly started having severe health problems. Forget playing soccer, the teenager couldn’t even walk properly and also started suffering from vision problems. His family rushed him to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where he was diagnosed with MS.

He and his family were clueless about MS. They had never even heard of it or known anyone suffering from it at that time. After being bedridden for thirteen days, Rajiv seemed to have come back to normalcy, until he had another attack the following year. In his case, change of weather is what used to affect him badly as he had the first attack in February-March 1996, another one in 1997 and yet another in 1998, all during February-March. The attack he suffered in 1999 was severe and he became wheelchair-bound. Despite being good in academics, he had to drop out of school, as India was and is still not disabled-friendly.

Naturally, he went into depression and did not know whom to turn to for support. His parents took him to Indian Spinal Injuries Centre (ISIC) for rehabilitation. The peer counsellor there, Mr Shivjeet Singh Raghav motivated him to somehow finish his studies and try and lead a normal life, and actually begin learning something that would enable him to be productive and get employed in the long run. Rajiv then finished his twelfth standard from open school and registered for a course in medical transcription. As he was bright, he was the topper in the course and was hired by the institute itself.

In 2005, he represented MSSI in the first ever Delhi Half Marathon and won it in the wheelchair section. He also managed to win it for the next three years. He was awarded the O.P. Jindal trophy (for sportsman of the year on wheelchair) and was also the first-ever nominee from India for the prestigious Wolfenson award from Multiple Sclerosis International Federation (MSIF) in 2006, and was chosen as the profile of the month of January 2006 by MSIF.

He has also driven his modified Maruti 800 all the way from New Delhi to Ladakh. In short, he is doing everything he has ever wanted to do.

Rajiv also plays wheelchair tennis. In 2008, he participated in the Malaysian Open and secured a bronze medal.

These days he works as an active rehab trainer, which involves training other wheelchair users to become independent in their day-to-day living. He also heads the sports department at ISIC.

Always wishing to be mobile, he now drives a specially designed scooter, and goes all over the city in it.

As far as medication is concerned, Rajiv takes no medication for MS. Of all the people I have met, Rajiv’s story has inspired me the most and I also feel like conquering new heights every day, just like him.

Jyoti Ronghe

Another person who has emerged stronger despite suffering from MS is Mrs Jyoti Ronghe from Pune. Jyoti is now fifty-three years old, and has been living with MS since 1998. A busy and active lady, she used to work as an adoption coordinator in a reputed NGO working in the field of patient welfare and adoption. She was extremely happy living her life with a loving husband and two children. In fact, along with her job, she used to learn Bharatanatyam with her then ten-year-old daughter. In 1998, when she was thirty-six, she started feeling very tired and used to become irritable in the evenings. She and her loved ones thought it was because of her always being busy with one thing or the other.

It is when dancing became difficult for her that she went to see an orthopaedic, but all tests turned out to be normal. Then she went to an ophthalmologist to get her blurred vision checked. Again, the reports were normal. A physiotherapist suggested that she should see a neurologist, which is what she did. It is the neurologist who made her aware of the fact that she was suffering from MS. Nobody in her family had heard about this disease. She was terrified as her children were still young. She gathered all the information she could about MS and came to know that it was not life-threatening.

However, she also realized it was not curable hence she would have to live with it all her life. She prayed to God to make her strong to face the challenges MS brought in its wake. Fortunately, her MS has not crippled her to the extent that she has to depend on others for her daily needs. But with the support of her family and friends she leads a comfortable and productive life.

Due to her health issues, she had to resign from her job in 2005. However, now she works as an adoption consultant and is very actively involved with MSSI.

The fact is that MS has indeed given her a new identity. She has become aware of her strengths as a human being. It has taught her to appreciate the simple joys of life and made her realize the true value of family and friends. She says it has also made her children more mature.

Recently, on Facebook, I met and chatted with Trevis L. Gleason, an active blogger and author, whose memoir
Chef Interrupted: Discovering Life’s Second Course in Ireland with Multiple Sclerosis
has been published. He was upbeat and positive about not giving up on life, despite whatever challenges life throws at him. I speed dial my thoughts to him whenever I need inspiration.

In the process of writing this book I discovered that most MS patients had shown improvement after taking homeopathic medicines. Thus I also thought of giving homeopathy a shot and approached Dr Pankaj Bhatnagar.

I told him I am writing a book on recovering from MS and would like to know about people he may have treated from neurological problems. He put me in touch with a patient of his, Surjeet Singh, who had had a bad attack of MS in 2004, when he was only thirty-one. He was completely bedridden. His brother took him to the homeopath and then in a matter of a week, he was able to walk with support. He took homeopathy for two years. A recent MRI test did show some lesions still there in his brain, and even the neurologists are amazed at him actually leading a normal life despite the lesions. He now leads an active and happy life.

I also spoke to Ambreesh Verma who got diagnosed with transverse myleitis, a form of MS in 2000, when he was just twenty. Transverse myelitis is a neurological condition in which the spinal cord is inflamed.

It started as disturbance in his bowel and bladder system and went on to create numbness in his legs. It took almost a month for him to be correctly diagnosed, and when it was, he was put on cortico steroids to overcome the inflammation in his spine. He recovered almost 90 per cent symptomatically. However, every subsequent year he continued having relapses till 2004. Then in the middle of 2004, one of his father’s business associates told him about Dr Bhatnagar.

Ambreesh started taking homeopathy medicines with the thought that if nothing works, at least homeopathy had no side effects. The numbness in his legs was still there, but after taking homeopathic medicines Ambreesh claimed he was feeling better overall. He continued with the medication and in the year 2007 his MRI showed complete regression in inflammation and the spinal cord was absolutely normal.

Today he is managing his family business alongside his father and is totally independent in his daily life. He loves listening to music, does his daily exercises and physiotherapy and also practices Buddhism for spiritual development and healing.

Another MS patient of Dr Bhatnagar is Paramjeet Singh, who was diagnosed with MS in 2004 and did not know what life lay ahead of him as he had lost strength in his arms and legs. Now, after taking Dr Bhatnagar’s medicines, he is much better and is able to do most things on his own.

The interaction with Dr Bhatnagar actually motivated me also to take up homeopathy again as currently I am not on any medication, and although acupuncture is indeed helping me a great deal, surely homeopathy could also be taken as it has no side effects. That’s the best part about homeopathy.

I have been fortunate to have met the people I have mentioned above, but there are many others, spread across continents, who have been fighting MS with grace and helping other MS sufferers live a graceful, dignified and happy life. Just reading about these people has inspired me to no end:

Annette Fredskov

My husband and I hardly ever talk about television shows. So, I was very surprised when he called me and asked me to switch on the TV and see a particular channel one day. As soon I switched the TV on, I saw the story of a Danish woman, Annette Fredskov who was diagnosed with MS in 2007. I also read up her story on the Internet in an article titled
Danish woman runs 366 marathons in 365 days
, and my mind was amazed at her superhuman feat. She also claimed that running the marathons had cured her MS. She ran her first marathon in 2010. In early 2011, the then forty-one-year-old Annette began to take part in a series of small marathons in Denmark and by the end of the year she had run a staggering fifty-one of them.

She said, ‘It has been a completely wonderful day. My dream has come true.’ In 2013, Annette and her husband, Ulrich, ran 26.2 miles every day for a year and ended it with a double marathon on July 14 the same year. She said that one of the reasons she began her gruelling challenge was to inspire other patients suffering from MS and stated, ‘Nothing should deter you from living life to the fullest and going for your dreams.’

Knowing about her made both me and my husband feel extremely positive that we would indeed be able to tackle the challenge that we were facing. Though I am not and have never been a kind of person who could even think about running the marathon, I vowed once again to have a regular fitness routine and kept raising the bar progressively.

Montel Williams

When I read an article about Montel Williams titled
Montel Williams: Living with MS
, I understood more than ever before that MS can indeed be handled and tackled gracefully and strongly. After all, Montel Williams has been a naval officer and is now a motivational speaker and an actor, by keeping MS as just another thing in his life, and not the focus of his life.

Montel Williams lived with various symptoms like blurred vision, twitching and blind spot for twenty years before he was diagnosed with MS in 1999, when he suddenly started suffering from extreme burning pain in his legs. In 1999, Williams went public with his MS diagnosis and went on to launch the Montel Williams MS Foundation, which raises money to fund research on the disease. His message to the world is: ‘I want to help people take responsibility for their health.’

Montel has hosted his own show titled
The Montel Williams Show
(1991-1998). He also acted in TV shows such as
Jag
and
Touched by an Angel
.

Tamia and Grant Hill

I smiled at my own loving bond with my husband when I read Tamia Hill’s story in an article titled
Meet Tamia!
Tamia Marilyn Hill (a Canadian R&B singer-songwriter) got married to retired NBA player Grant Hill. The couple has been through two life-threatening illnesses in a single year.

In 2003, Grant contracted a potentially fatal infection in his knee. The same year, Tamia was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). In 2005, Tamia began speaking out about her struggle with MS, and has successfully been able to control the condition with diet, exercise and medication.

Now, they have solidified their lasting relationship and recognize the gift they’ve been given to talk about success and triumph over adversity to others.

Richard Cohen

Another person I really liked reading about was author and journalist Richard M. Cohen. I read Richard’s blog titled
Journeyman
where he has described his battle with MS in great detail, especially in the article titled
A Life on the Edge.
He has lived with MS for the past forty-one years, but has made every minute count. Not only MS, Cohen has combated colon cancer as well, and that too twice. His wife Meredith Vierra married him despite knowing he had been diagnosed with MS and has been a pillar of support all through. Now married for nearly twenty years with three children, they are a great family. Vierra, the Emmy Award winning host of the popular TV show
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
juggles her time beautifully between her husband and her career. Somehow, Cohen’s family reminds me of my own family and shows how robust family relationships can make a huge difference. They also make the patient confident that love can overcome all odds.