“I was in a karaoke joint entertaining clients. All of us were happily singing. Suddenly, I felt numbness on the left side of my body. I had difficulty catching my breath. I was advised by my client to stand up and stretch. I tried and collapsed. My colleague rushed me to a private hospital in PJ. In the car, I vomited twice. I knew then something bad was happening.

I was in hospital for nearly one month following my stroke. The late Dato’ Dr N. Arumugasamy, a very famous neuro surgeon then, treated me. He put me in ICU for one week, did many tests to ascertain the cause and finally performed a head operation on me a week later. I had suffered a haemorrhagic stroke. Blood vessels inside my brain had burst and leaked into the surrounding brain tissue (intracerebral haemorrhage). The stroke was on the right side of the brain, thus it affected the left part of my body. It was caused by an Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM), which is a cluster of abnormally formed blood vessels, something I was born with. Any of these vessels can rupture causing bleeding into the brain.

I was totally lost and didn’t know what to expect. In the first three months, I was bed ridden and home alone as my wife had to go to work. There was no one to help move me around from bed to wheelchair and vice-versa. I also suffered partial memory loss causing me to lose my speech. I couldn’t construct a sentence even though I knew what I wanted to say.

Due to haemorrhagic stroke a lot of my brain cells had been damaged. Based on the damage my doctor cautioned my wife, who was my caregiver, not to expect too much. He told her I may not be able to walk or speak well again.

My future looked really bleak. The ASEAN economic crisis had just started due to the devaluation of the Thai Baht in July 1997. In 1998, Malaysia was hit by this crisis and we began to experience a bad recession. Five months following the stroke I couldn’t think properly, walk, or talk. I knew I could not return to work. Since I couldn’t recover in time for the listing, I resigned from Abric in February 1998. For me personally, it was the darkest period of my life.

Even though the doctor advised me to take it easy and to sleep while waiting for the body to slowly recover, I refused to rest. Instead, while lying in bed, I did quite a lot of research into stroke on the internet.

I also did a lot of memory exercises that my doctor taught me. The exercises were quite simple. When I was in the hall, kitchen or other parts of the house, I would call out items and my caregiver would list them on a paper. Once back in my room, I had to recall the items that were listed. In the beginning we started with five to 10 items. Slowly the number increased to as high as 50 items. I had to recall the items in the correct sequence. It was not an easy exercise but it helped to reorganise and reformat my brain.

In the third month, we hired a physiotherapist to come to the house for a one hour session, three times a week. She took me through:

• Strengthening and stretching – to help regain muscle strength and reduce tightness.
• Mapping – to trigger my ability to think through conversations and questions and help me reorganise my thoughts. Our conversation was simple. For example, she would ask me what I had for breakfast, at what time, etc. She would then repeat the question to see if I could recall my answer accurately.

After about three months of this intensive routine, I woke up one morning and realised my brain had been remapped or reformatted, and from then on I had little trouble making sentences. Vocabulary and words just flowed smoothly as per what I wished to say, even though I still had some trouble mapping images – recognising and matching faces to names.

My body too recovered with physio and I progressed from bed to wheelchair, then walker, walking stick, and eventually was able to walk on my own. The entire process from bed to standing on my own, without walking aids, took nearly two years. It was way ahead of what the doctor had anticipated because I had refused to accept the norms and chose to exercise rigorously, both physically and mentally.

In my home we did not modify anything to accommodate my disabilities. I refused to agree to any alterations. I told my wife that I did not want to be a different person, a ‘special’ human being. I told her while physically I may not be the same anymore, I wanted to adapt to the environment, instead of the other way round. That way, I felt I could still lead a normal life despite some physical challenges. She watched me struggle but supported my effort. By working as a team, we took one challenge at a time. It wasn’t easy, but I believe as human beings we are resilient by nature, if we choose not to give up, we can move mountains…eventually.

Let me tell you something about my inspiration. In the first 1-3 months, while bed ridden, I could not do much except surf the internet and watch movies on my notebook. During this period, I watched Rocky I-V, again and again…many, many times. The character that motivated me, I would say, is Rocky Balboa.

I have collected all his key quotes to motivate myself. One of his best quotes in my notebook: ‘Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!’ – Rocky Balboa

Watching the movies kept me alive. I used to imagine that I was the mighty Rocky who was undefeated, no matter who or what challenged him. Rocky was there to prove his worth to the world and through him I found my purpose…and my worth.

Apart from physiotherapy, I tried many other traditional treatments, such as acupuncture, reflexology and homeopathy and various types of massage and holistic therapies, such as reiki, yoga and qi gong. I went for rehab very frequently in the early stages. I used to drive for hours from Sungai Buloh to Ampang and to Puchong for the various treatments. Initially it was daily treatments. Then we went alternate days and later this was reduced further. By doing aggressive physiotherapy in the very early stages, the basic weakness caused by stroke was corrected. The other traditional treatments, at subsequent stages, helped fine tune and further correct the physical movements, emotional weaknesses and mental hang-ups.

Something else which I strongly believe helped in my recovery is taking supplements. There’s no documented proof so most allopathy doctors remain sceptical. But as a strokee with brain cells destroyed I was willing to try. By taking a particular supplement, referred by a doctor, my energy levels rose and the stiffness and pain I experienced on waking, on stroke affected parts, are non-existent today.

These treatments cost a lot of money. They ate into my savings, and with little capacity to make a living on my own, my financial book was always in the red (deficit). I felt very helpless and worried.

However, I had set my mind to challenging and overcoming my stroke. There was no looking back. I recovered step by step, and into my third year I decided I wanted to drive. Although the doctor disagreed and strongly disapproved, I went ahead. I bought a Perodua Kembara. Just like with the house, I did not alter the car. I forced myself to use my own approach and skills to adapt and manoeuvre the vehicle. It wasn’t easy, but I managed. This may sound crazy but I also refused to drive slow. Instead I pushed the vehicle to speeds I could manage. This act didn’t go down well with my wife and we had many disagreements. In the beginning she refused to sit in my car but I managed to convince her to have faith in my skills and judgement. I told her that if I stopped taking risks and feared my stroke, I would have no hope of a rewarding future – one where I would be able to compete with others, excel and pursue dreams and achieve great things in life. Reluctantly, she gave in and the rest is history.

I came to NASAM in 2000, nearly three years after my stroke. My wife had read a newspaper article and drove me over, without telling me. Initially, I refused to leave the car because I believed that if I wanted to recover I had to do it myself, no else could help me. Eventually, after being coaxed by a few people, I got out of the car and participated in some of the activities. Later, as I got to know NASAM and other strokees, I had the comfort of knowing that I was not alone and that there were many others who were worse off than me. I was motivated to try harder, to recover more so that, hopefully, I would be able to assist other strokees. With this belief, I set new goals for myself and eventually, in 2001, became one of the board members of NASAM.

While the traditional treatments helped improve my physical body, NASAM takes the credit for motivating and strengthening me mentally. It was after mixing with members at the centre that I became less self-conscious and had the courage to attend events, and go to different places, even the more crowded ones.

Today, 20 years on, I would like to believe that I am a much wiser and fulfilled person. My profession as a head hunter allows me to guide and shape the careers of others. Very often, I also provide free counselling sessions to my candidates, especially when they encounter personal or work issues. Also, as a NASAM board member, I have the opportunity to contribute to society and utilise my past experiences to motivate and inspire other strokees.”