Make the Sunshine

"Hope, in this sense, is a decision. It is the most important decision we can make. Hope changes everything, starting with our lives. Hope is the force that enables us to take action, To make our dreams come true" Dr. Daisaku Ikeda Since the day I was diagnosed with MS, I made a decision to be hopeful. 'I hope' each day and everyday. When I conceived I hoped that I deliver a healthy baby. I hoped to remain healthy myself. I also hoped to be able to give my baby breast milk as much as I could. What ensued was, that, initially when my baby was born i.e. the first four weeks, I thought and felt that (only) breast feeding was the most stupid decision I had made. I could not sleep, it was painful. As time passed I got comfortable with the whole experience of Motherhood.   And I ended up giving my baby breast milk for 2 years. It was and will be the most beautiful yet enduring, amazing yet difficult, experience of my life so far. I fee...

When that finger rises up and points to the ceiling as soon as the beat hits, my heart skips a beat and I look and think in wonder how has he grown up so quickly. It seems like it was yesterday when I tried to feed him his first mother's milk, and he was refusing to latch to my boobs. It was one of the most painful things i experienced. Well yes!! I am a mom of a beautiful baby boy. Who would have thought that! After being diagnosed with MS in 2013, this day seemed really far fetched.  It had been a year or so since I had left Tecfidera. I was feeling good, doing good, no relapse or anything.  After a fun filled trip to Thailand  with my brother and niece, within a month of coming back Bam! just like that i got pregnant. I never thought it would be so easy for me...no.medications, no treatments, no waiting. It happened, I was kinda prepared and unprepared. I had the most amazing  and fulfilling 9 months of my life. 11 hrs of labor and a vaginal delivery....

I have often seen my parents drink the Golden Milk (Turmeric infused milk) during winters. But I never used to pay much heed to it. The thought of drinking it would disgust me. When I was diagnosed with MS, after a few week of my mother’s research regarding what kind of diet I should be on, she kept on telling me how the turmeric is good for auto immune diseases as it has anti-inflammatory properties. She would insist on having the fresh one which is available in India during the winters. Here I am after three years of my mother nagging; Golden Water (since I am off milk) is what I swear by for a fatigued morning. It refreshes by body and helps relieve the body pain and the burning sensation that I get on my left leg (the affected leg). It has also helped me with cold cough and flu like symptoms. Preparation Method: Grate some fresh turmeric in a pan with water. Let it boil till the color of the water turns orange.  Add a teaspoon of Honey if you like. Try it and let me...

After coming back from the hospital I didn’t know how to go about anything. My wedding was within the next four months and my brother was going to Germany to start his first job and I still hadn't figured out how to tell my sister that I won’t be coming to see her in England and be with her during the last few months of her pregnancy. We had so many plans, I was planning to throw her a baby shower and she was planning a bachelorette party for me.  I had everything planned out like my shopping list, places I wanted to go and eat in London. But just as they say” man proposes god disposes”, everything has a reason. I was still wondering at that moment, what was the reason that I had MS. I had to visit the doctor after a month, when the course of the oral steroids finishes. Night and day, home and family, friends everything was same but the only thing that was not the same was that now am living with an incurable disease. My mother started to do her research for what kind of f...

Dawn of a new day has come, a new day filled with new prayers, with the anxiety of  a fresh thought and outlook that now i am a girl with MS, where everything seems so different in a different way. I woke up with anxiety. I hate injections, and the thought of getting IV was getting on my nerves. I still get jittery when I think of getting an injection. I find it very painful, like I said earlier, I am a sensitive girl. So I went to the hospital with my mom, brother and father.  There was no room available so had to wait, at that time I was numb looking over all the people around me, I realized all emotions can be witnessed at the hospital; sadness, happiness, anger , despair, excitement. When I look at myself I was confused. I thought of myself as a perfectly normal girl; walking and talking and eating, but was at a hospital getting steroids for a Multiple Sclerosis episode. The irony of this disease is that we look fine to everyone, no one would know unless told that we...

Just before the MRI result came, the owner of the diagnostic centre came to me and said that my brain was swollen. I was startled, and anyone I think would be startled at what was he trying to say. Imagine this! Oh your brain is swollen! He then went on to ask, had I ever had any injury on my head. Well... Yes!! It happened during my sister’s wedding. While shopping for her friends who came from England especially to experience the Big Fat Indian wedding, I had gone to New Delhi to buy everyone ‘GHAGRIS’ and ‘JHUMKIS’ and all those things typically Indian as I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned being the wedding planner. It was morning time and the stalls were being put up, so I was finding something for myself, when suddenly, BANG went an Iron rod on my head. The pain was intense however; it got better after a few hours of putting ice-pack on my head. I still managed to get everyone the clothes. YAY! And the wedding was beautiful. Double YAY! But literally ‘coming back’ to the ...

I left the doctors clinic, and felt both shaken up and shocked. Steroids, hospitalized, neurologist, what is this happening?  I wanted to run out of there and go see my fiance. I didn’t want to go home and tell my parents. I didn’t have the courage to tell them. How do I explain to them why  I needed an MRI. Outside the clinic everything seemed different, especially for me as if the world was coming to an end. I thought to myself is this how it feels like when you know you are going to die? Because at that time the only reason I could imagine for the MRI was some TUMOR or CANCER.  I was sobbing on the way with dilated eyes. Can you imagine that!! The moment I entered home my younger brother asked “what happened rajo?? Why are you crying and trembling??”  Mom came out of the kitchen “kya hua” what did the doc say? I chocked and said “mom, I need an MRI” and the tears fueled by fear and sorrow came out endlessly. My father came downstairs; all scared not knowing wh...