THE RESILIENCE THAT HOLDS FORT

Miind My Miind endeavours to share stories of people who braved challenges with sheer grit and proved to the world how mental resilience counts..

- Gurrit K. Sethi

My brain is my powerhouse' she said with a twinkle in her eye when I met her! And I was infected!! Diagnosed with Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy, which is a progressive terminal disorder, at a mere sixteen and a half years, when all at her age are brimming with energy and enthusiasm and spiritedly looking forward to life, Deepshikha was given a maximum life span of 10 years.

While other teens ran and jumped around in their various pursuits of teenage excitement, she noticed walking issues while climbing stairs, carrying bags which led to this diagnosis. She wanted to be a doctor. However, she had to drop that career pursuit because of her daily routine of 46 hours of physiotherapy at that time. All academic goals changed. In fact the family also gave up all such goals for her... So she took to arts.

Another trauma that ran along through this was to keep her condition hidden from the world so that this did not jeopardise her younger sister's future prospects of marriage. The frantic family tried all alternative treatments, through the first few years, as Deepshikha tried to continue her study and to face the world. She found her friends move on as they followed their individual quests in life. It was cruel seeing and feeling left behind. She felt that no one had the heart to be with her. Except for her younger sister. She learnt to be content with the fragrance of the 'madhu-malti' drifting up to her room from the garden below. Good happens to good people said Shivani, egging her on daily through every step.

She struggled with the emotions of a young girl, that could not come to fruition alongside the fact that you are dying. She found her parents busy as well - dealing with their own trauma and trying to find treatments and solutions to get their girl back up and around.