PERSONAL GROWTH by Lalitha Nandyala Shoaib photographers / Shutterstock.com I Came Back — A Letter to Every Woman Who Thinks She Can’t Two years ago, I almost didn’t make it. It began at a quiet family dinner at my cousin’s home. We had just finished eating and were talking, the way we always did, when a sudden, severe pain exploded in the left lower side of my head. I asked my cousin for a Tylenol — but somewhere deep inside me, a quiet voice was already saying, this is not an ordinary headache. Do not delay. I turned to my husband, took his hand, and said, “Take me to the emergency room now. I need help.” He told me to drink water, to relax, that it would pass. And then I spoke the words that changed everything: “If you delay, you will repent for the rest of your life.” In that moment, the room went still. Everyone moved. He rushed me to urgent care. I was throwing up. My vision blurred and then went dark. The pain was so unbearable that I begged the doctor to cut my head open. He gave me something to help me sleep and sent me straight to a CT scan. I could no longer see anything, but I could hear everything — voices that seemed to be coming from a long, faraway distance. I heard the doctor tell my husband, “It is not a good sign. She has bleeding in her brain. You need to take her to Medical City Dallas immediately.” I heard my husband ask, “Is it dangerous?” And the doctor answered, “This is life-threatening. The ambulance is on the way.” Somewhere between this world and the next, I had an experience I will never forget. I saw my own body turning into ashes. The fire was everywhere. And then I saw my brother — the brother I lost when I was in middle school — and he reached into the flames, lifted me out, and set me back down on the earth. Even in death, he was still my big brother. Even in death, he refused to let me go. My daughters arrived just before the ambulance. Their small hands touched my face. I turned to the doctor and said, “I want to live. I have two daughters. I am a business woman, and my employees depend on me.” He looked at me and said only, “We are trying our best.” The ambulance carried me to Medical City Dallas. The next two days are gone from my memory. The doctors told my family I had a 3% chance of survival. They performed an angiogram to see if the bleeding had stopped, or whether surgery was needed. By every law of medicine, I should not have walked away. But the bleeding had stopped on its own. No surgery. The doctors were stunned — they called it a miracle. I call it God. They kept me in the ICU for two weeks, feeding me medication through a PICC line. For a few terrifying seconds, I lost my speech entirely — a silence I will never forget. The year that followed was a blur of MRIs, CT scans, and neurologist appointments. I wasn’t allowed to drive. I couldn’t focus on myself, let alone my business. I felt completely depleted — emptied out in a way I did not know was possible. But here is what I have learned about women: we do not break the way the world expects us to. We are the multitaskers of this world. We hold homes, children, careers, aging parents, and the invisible weight of a thousand small things, all at once. We move through hormonal storms, perimenopause, menopause, sleepless nights, and bodies that change without our permission. enterprising Women 93
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzA5OTEy