Chapter 1- How it all started...

Like every ‘good Indian Girl’, amidst all the fanfare, paraphernalia and much pomp and show, I got married to the man that I had chosen. While we were still basking in our marital bliss, early one morning, I woke up with a terrible pain on the right side of my face. Although it was unbearable, I took a few painkillers and expecting it to subside, tried to go back to sleep. Two hours later, I was still feeling a stabbing pain and when I could not tolerate it anymore, I woke my husband up and he gave me another pain killer after which we both got ready and went to our respective work places. At work, I had a lecture scheduled which I barely managed to finish and had to rush back home because the pain was excruciating. It felt as if the entire right side of my face was being stabbed with daggers and after a while it would go numb. I prayed that I became unconscious because it was too much for me to bear. I reached home and called my mother who immediately rushed to be with me and I lay in her lap till my husband came in the evening. The only thing that was giving me relief was water which I would fill in my mouth and for some reason, while that water would be in the mouth, the pain would subside. I had finished three to four bottles of water in about three hours. As soon as my husband saw my condition, he rushed me to the local family doctor whose clinic was close by and the doctor immediately diagnosed my condition as ‘Trigeminal Neuralgia’ or TN. These were words that I had never heard before and did not understand what it meant either. The doctor prescribed some medicines and promised that these would provide immediate relief. On our way back from his clinic, we stopped by at the chemist and purchased the medicines and the moment we reached home, I popped those in and miraculously, as the doctor had promised, they did give me some relief and I slept. After about four hours I woke up with the same terrible pain and was given one of the pills again and this cycle went on every four hours till the next morning. In the morning when I opened my eyes, everything appeared hazy. After this, the entire month was terrible because we discovered that these medicines were nerve relaxants and would dull senses. We also got to know that TN gets worse with time because the body becomes resistant to the medicines and the only solution is to keep increasing the dose every now and then. One day while I was resting at home, my husband gave a frantic call to find out how I was feeling. I was a little worried because of his tone and I later got to know in the evening that he had browsed the internet to find out about TN and he was horrified to know what it was. What followed was days of investigations and visits to various neurologists and neuro- surgeons because TN was a condition in which the Trigeminal nerve in the face would misfire because of either a tumor in the brain or a vascular loop. What astonished all the doctors was that it usually presents in patients who were 50 years or older but I was only 28. An MRI was recommended. That added to our worries because both of us had already spent a lot of money on medication and visits to the doctors and the MRI would cost us a lot of money, at least it seemed to be a lot at that point. We somehow managed to arrange for the money and I was finally taken for the MRI on a Saturday afternoon. I remember spending 45 minutes inside the cylindrical contraption hearing various sounds and trying to bear the stabbing pain that kept coming back again and again. I remember chatting with God and requesting him to cure me as I had just started my life with my new family and I had my parents to take care of. My husband was very worried and later told me that he could have fainted just standing and waiting in anticipation. The reports revealed that I had a vascular loop near the fifth cranial nerve which was causing that pain and the only permanent solution was surgery.

Our worst fears had come true. Each day after that was a challenge as we would spend hours browsing the internet trying to find an alternative treatment. We were just hoping against odds to find a cure. More than anyone else, it was my husband who was getting affected by my condition, as he saw my condition deteriorate with every passing day. The doses of the medicines were increasing and the intake was becoming more and more frequent. We took the MRI reports to all neuro-surgeons we knew or could approach and all of them had the same diagnosis and suggested the same prognosis. On the insistence of one of these surgeon’s who was working in one of the most reputed hospitals of India and was my friend’s husband, we started planning for the surgery. The colleagues in my office were very co-operative and never pressurized me to be in office when I couldn’t during this entire struggling period. We informed my office that I will be missing office for a long time as the surgery and post surgery recovery would take very long. Although we had made up our minds about the surgery, my Husband was somehow not too convinced with the idea because he was fully aware of the fallouts of any surgery that needed any tampering with the brain. The complications in my case could have been as mild as loss of a mild sensation to facial paralysis. Very often he would come back home early from work just to be with me, or would get somebody to try Reiki for healing. Fortunately, his colleagues and superiors also understood the gravity of the situation and understood that he needed to be with me.

One sunny Sunday afternoon, I was feeling better so I cooked lunch for both of us and after lunch, he decided to watch a film while I decided to sleep. After fifteen minutes I suddenly felt as if somebody was repeatedly piercing daggers in my face. I writhed in pain and shouted for help. My husband came running and gave me the medicine. This time, the attack took very long to subside. After I felt a little better, my husband lay down besides me, running his fingers through my hair and carefully avoiding touching my face (touching also could trigger the pain off). I saw tears slowly welling up in his eyes and soon after that he was crying like a baby. He had decided that he would now stay with me day in and day out till the time I was cured. He was determined to take me away from these problems. He could not see me in so much pain. That day he made a promise to himself that he would take on the responsibility of fighting this problem that had unnecessarily cropped up in our blissful life. He started chanting for my complete recovery as he was a member of a Buddhist group. All his fellow members also started chanting for my complete recovery. We booked our tickets for our vacation and slowly, I still don’t know whether it was because of chanting or some other factor, my pain started to lessen. We went for our vacation where I tried to stay off the medicine and miraculously, the pain did not come back. After we came back from the vacation, we discovered, I was pregnant.