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Submitted by PatientsEngage on 4 May 2017

Meet Mrunmaiy Abroal, a successful and bright young professional whose world was turned upside down when a fateful road accident rendered her immobile shoulder downwards. Despite a Spinal Cord Injury, she managed to finally overcome self doubt and regain confidence to succeed in her work life.

Life before the accident

March - Goa with friends
April - Pune & Lonavala with mom
May - Oslo on work & Amsterdam for a solo holiday
June - Taipei on work & Nagpur to be with family

This is what my life looked in the months leading up to the accident. Living independently in Mumbai, doing work that I enjoyed and living life my way. I was literally having the time of my life.

I came down to Nagpur from Mumbai for a couple of days. On 9th June 2011, Dad, mom and me started our drive to Mumbai around 6 AM. And we met with that fateful accident 300 Kms away from home at around 11 PM.

Till date, I have no memory of the accident and how I got the Cervical Spinal Cord injury. The last thing I remember doing before the accident was being on a call with my colleague to discuss winners of a social media contest we had recently conducted.

When I regained consciousness a few days after the accident and subsequent surgery, I was unable to move any part of my body except eyes. My throat hurt because now it had a metal implant to keep my spinal cord together. I was immobile. Life had suddenly turned upside down.

As soon as I was out of the ICU, I wanted to make sure that my office had been informed. My sister helped in drafting an email to communicate to my office that I had met with an accident and will be on leave for three months.

The first two months were spent in three different hospitals in Nagpur. Nobody informed me of the gravity of my situation. Only reassurances came my way. “Have faith, keep exercising and you will be up and running in no time”. I would tell myself that God wanted me to rest and this was his way of forcing it on me. During that time I watched almost every English movie ever screened on TV.

After two months of my accident, I shifted to the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre (ISIC) in New Delhi. This was a culture shock for me. Instead of lying on the bed the entire day, I was expected to spend maximum time in the physiotherapy room, exercising with physiotherapists or by myself in the gym and occupational therapy area.

A combination of my consulting neurosurgeon, energetic rehab therapists, peer counsellors, the company of fellow freshly injured people like me and their families helped me in keeping cheer even after knowing about the permanent implications of my spinal cord injury.

In one month, my mindset evolved from ‘waiting to recover and then resuming life’ to ‘resuming life and let health recover at its own pace’.

I had an extremely supportive team at work and encouraging managers who patiently cooperated as I took baby steps when getting back to work after three months of the injury. My first meeting with the entire India team was a dinner at a restaurant near the rehab centre. At that time, I could not even eat or lift my food or water by myself. My cousin accompanied and fed me as I got introduced to new colleagues who had joined within the last three months and everyone discussed the latest updates at work.

Technology can assist

Initially, I only had the strength to use my thumb for using my iPhone. Emails were already configured so I did not have to be dependent only on my laptop to start working. I could use my thumb to type long messages. Around the same time, a friend visiting me in the hospital gave me his Bluetooth ear piece. I couldn’t lift the phone with my hands. It was either using the speakerphone or someone had to hold the phone to my ear when speaking with colleagues and during team calls. Using the Bluetooth ear piece was my first step towards working independently.

ISIC also had an assistive devices' division. They made a splint to my hand measurements so that I could operate the laptop with my index finger. Being able to use the laptop felt amazing. My work involves a lot of content creation so my next obvious step was to invest in dictation software. I wouldn’t have known about this option so soon if I had not discussed with the mother of another quadriplegic, who was from the US. I also discovered accessibility features in my laptop, like the sticky keys, that made it easier to operate it with just one finger.

Dealing with self-doubt

When working, I would always compare myself to the previous version of me. I had the same expectations on output, as I did earlier. But in reality, I was unable to sit for long durations and work. I would work in the first half, go for physiotherapy in the second half of the day and then catch up on work late into the night. At times I would have to excuse myself from a long team call because I would start sweating excessively, due to a wrong sitting posture, and the heat coming out of my body was unbearable. I also always questioned myself, ‘Am I doing justice to the salary being paid to me’.

So, one of the first things I did to fight my self-doubts was to put a post-it note in front of my desk ‘If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will’. It helped me to feel confident whenever I had a doubt about myself. I even went to the extreme of getting a big tattoo on my forearm that says ‘You are what you think you are’. Self-affirmations are essential to feel good about oneself. This starts a chain reaction where one also gets comfortable appreciating the work that you are able to do despite challenges.

Re-building Confidence

My office work is the only thing I can completely do by myself.  I cannot get ready by myself, but I am completely capable of launching a new product by my company. Working for a company gave me a purpose beyond myself. I am not just responsible for my own well being but also, partly, for the business objectives of that company. I set short-term goals for myself and achieving them helped me build my confidence back brick by brick.