One Fine Day, Everything Changed
My life after a stroke, and the morning that turned everything upside down
By Sameer Bhide
Where It All Began
Growing Up in Mumbai
I grew up in Mumbai, India a hustling and bustling city that never really sits still. I was actually born in Pune, a city 100 miles southeast but Mumbai is where I did my schooling and college, and where I became who I was as a kid and a young man. I played cricket. I played competitive badminton and was even featured in The Times of India a few times. Every morning, I read the sports pages of that same newspaper without fail. The business news and the op eds could wait. Frankly, I found them boring back then! Like many young Indians of my generation, I had dreamed of going to America since childhood. So, in 1990, at the age of twenty, I packed my bags and arrived at the University of Lynchburg in Lynchburg, Virginia, a small town in the American South, as an international student.
Building a Life in America
What followed was close to three decades of building a life in my adopted country. I finished my studies, did my MBA, and started working. My first job was at Ernst & Young in Cleveland. Then came Boston, and then the Washington, D.C., area, which became my home for about twenty years. I spent more than two decades in corporate America. I had an excellent job, a nice house, a loving family, wonderful friends, and yes, a fancy sports car too. I was (and still am) a huge NFL fan, I rarely skipped my Dunkin' Donuts coffee, and I tried to stay active with tennis, racquetball, swimming or the gym. I distinctly remember running behind my sons as they learned to ride their bikes. My life was predictable and routine, in a good way. I was living the American Dream, and I was quite happy doing so.
January 31, 2017: The Morning Everything Changed
Then came January 31, 2017.
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That fateful morning, without any warning, I suffered a sudden, massive and rare haemorrhagic stroke. I am not going to bore you with medical side of things here. This piece is about my recovery story, and a very personal one. What I can tell you is that, just like that, overnight, everything changed. Forever.
From One Hundred Miles an Hour to Zero
I had been independent all my life. I was the guy who did his own thing, ran his own errands and hardly ever asked anyone for help. Now I could not even get out of bed on my own. I was completely bedridden and totally dependent for the most basic things. The way I like to describe it is this: it felt like I went from one hundred miles an hour to zero overnight. There was no slowing down and no gentle braking. That is how life after a haemorrhagic stroke began for me. It simply came to a screeching halt.
Why Me?
Don’t get me wrong, I was incredibly grateful to have survived. Things could have easily ended for me that morning. But being grateful did not make the days any easier. The physical challenges were huge, and the emotional ones were just as big, if not bigger. I had very little control over my own body, I could not work, and I could not hang out with my kids or see my friends the way I used to. Lying in that bed, I had a lot of time to think. Maybe too much time. And the same questions kept coming back to me, again and again. Why me? Why was I going through this? Why had I survived something so catastrophic? And the biggest one of all, what was I supposed to do now?
My Recovery Story, One Small Step at a Time
Recovery came in small steps. After a few days, I could thankfully be wheeled around in a wheelchair. A few months later, I moved on to a walker. Eventually I graduated to a cane, which I still have to use today. To anyone watching, these may have looked like tiny changes. To me, each one felt like getting back a small piece of the life I once knew. A year or so later, during one of my regular visits to the neurosurgeon who had operated on me twice, he was stunned by my progress. He called it nothing short of a miracle. I will take that!
Finding Purpose After a Life Changing Event
The answers to my questions did not come overnight. Finding purpose after a life altering event, I have learnt, rarely does. Somewhere along the way, I started looking at my survival a little differently. God had decided it was not yet my time to leave this beautiful planet of ours. So, I figured there had to be a reason I was still here. I began to think about other people overcoming adversity in life, whether physical or emotional, personal or professional, big or small. If my story could give even one of them a little comfort or a little hope, then maybe that was what I was meant to do with this second lease on life. It became my mission. Nothing was going to stand in my way… nothing! That mission eventually turned me into what I like to call an Accidental Author, but that is a story for another day.
My New New Normal
I won’t pretend that everything worked out neatly. Almost ten years later, I still live with significant dizziness, balance issues and headaches every single day. I call it my “New New Normal.” Some days are good; some are not so good. But I can observe, I can share, and I can type with one hand. And here I am, writing this.
When people ask me how life after a stroke has been, I often tell them I may be down, but I’m not out. Life changed on me one fine day without asking my permission. What I did not know back then, lying in that bed, was that it was not the end of my story. It was only the part where everything changed.
If there is one thing this experience has taught me, it is that life can take us in directions we never imagined. And sometimes the chapters we never planned for end up teaching us the most about ourselves. I certainly never planned for mine. I guess nobody does!
I would love to hear from you. Has life ever taken an unexpected turn on you and changed the way you looked at things? Feel free to share your thoughts or your story in the comments. I believe we all have stories worth telling, and we can learn a lot from one another.
If you would like to know more about my journey I have shared much of it in my memoir, One Fine Day. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, where I look forward to continuing these conversations. Also check out my website for information about me (https://www.sameerbhide.com/).
Until next time, take care of yourself and keep going. You never know what the next chapter might bring.
Wishing you all a Very Happy and Prosperous Diwali 🪔🙏
