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World Stroke Day: How brain haemorrhage put unexpected brakes on Rohma Theunissen's life

Here’s her journey to discovering a new normal

There was nothing spectacularly different about the seventh day of November in 2017. Not at least for Canadian national of Pakistani origin Rohma Theunissen who had made Dubai her home.

Working for a corporation’s public relations and communications department, she was juggling between the pressures of a demanding job and preparations for her wedding that was to take place in coming months. If anything, it was a period of anticipation and hope. Upon reaching office that day, Rohma — then 31 — began experiencing a persistent headache. Could it have been because she’d slept late the night before, she wondered. When a colleague pointed out that she seemed out of sorts that morning was when she assumed that the combined exhaustion of the preparation and work were finally taking a toll on her.

“It was 4 pm. And I was sitting on my desk, and when the headache started to increase in intensity was when I went to the pantry and had a slice of chocolate cake, thinking that eating would resolve it,” she recalls. By 4.45 pm, it was no longer just a pounding headache. All of a sudden, Rohma felt that someone had literally hit the back of her head with a baseball bat… except no one did. Overcome with nausea, Rohma felt she would vomit, but didn’t. The red flag was finally raised.

By the time her family took her to the hospital that evening, Rohma had already popped a few tablets of migraine medication. “I remember walking from my car and sitting on a stretcher. I threw up and passed out,” says Rohma, who comes from a family of doctors and surgeons.

Rohma had a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage and spent the next five days in the hospital before she underwent an aneurysm repair (to repair the aneurysm that had burst and stop the bleeding in the brain) at Cleveland Clinic. What also came to light was the fact that Rohma was born with a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) that caused considerable blood in the brain to flow from one particular vein. Since she had never really experienced any discomfort, her condition had remained undiagnosed. Rohma went on to undergo gamma knife surgery in the UK to obliterate the AVM that was causing the high blood flow and had led the aneurysm to eventually rupture. Had that not been done, there was a possibility to experience another haemorrhage in the future. It took three years for the malformation to completely go away.

As we chat with Rohma, now an entrepreneur, ahead of the World Stroke Day on October 29, we wonder what is the human cost of the experience she has had. Shortly after her surgery in the UK in February 2018, Rohma got married. In a way, her period of recovery coincided with entering a new phase in life. But return to ‘normalcy’ was not easy. “I had no short-term memory for quite some time because of which I could not have a proper conversation with anyone. I remember I was interviewing for a job and did not tell prospective employers that I had had a stroke. Once I did manage to get the job, I deliberately kept a low profile at the office. If I had conversation with colleagues, I would write down what we spoke about. It was only after a year that I felt confident about telling them that I had a stroke.”

Rohma also experiences light and sound sensitivity, which continues to make socialising difficult. “I cannot go to parties or places with loud music. My brain gets overstimulated very easily. When it comes to wedding celebrations, I’m lucky if I’m able to attend it. I love spending time with people but big groups are really challenging for me as my senses are hyper-sensitive. I have lost friends along the way as a result of my limitations,” she recalls.

Over the years, she has also had to set up her own business to manage the work flow as per her needs. Today, however, she chooses to focus on the silver linings. “You cannot compare who you are to who you once were before you had a stroke, because then you will go into depression (something many stroke survivors experience). Once you have had a stroke, your brain is permanently damaged. Even if I do look like anyone else, it’s not as though I have recovered completely. For example, I used to process things much faster earlier, while I now take some time. But the thing is you have to work around your deficiency because there are other parts of the brain that overcompensate for that loss. This is what neuroplasticity tells us.” But, above all, what an experience such as this one teaches is that you cannot take anything for granted — least of all your life. “We mourn loss of a job or money, but in the end, it is miracles like these that give us reason to live to the fullest. You develop new skills that allow you to lead a good life — one that could possibly be better than the one you lived before. For example, my approach now to any crisis is — what’s the worst that can happen? You really get a perspective on things that matter the most.”

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