Nazia’s story

Nazia Hussain – My abbreviated story

This June, I read a poem. Poetry is not my thing but the short poem was inspiration and hopeful –

“　I have crossed an ocean. I have lost my tongue. From the roots of the old one. A new one has sprung.”　　

Last September, I suffered an brain aneurysm. Two days after I had a stroke. This is my story.

I was born in Manchester and I have five siblings. Growing up, we were bilingual – my mother and father are south Asians and they speak Urdu and Punjabi. 　Actually, we were multilingual. I passed A level Urdu and wrote fluently. Arabic is the language of the Quran (book of Islam) and, my childhood days, I was fascinated with Arabic script. Alas, the Arabic teacher expelled me and my sister and Arabic language was dropped. My father was livid.. He is a hard task master – after all, he was a maths teacher. Now, after the stroke, my Urdu and Punjabi are almost disappeared but swear words are fluent.

Currently, I hope that I will be back to work soon. Who knows? My role is manager. The organisation is human rights. Human rights and democracy are the primary mission. We work over the world tacking discrimination and intolerance. Topics include education, justice, health, refugees and migrants, and closed societies. Public health involves building the health care over the world. Aphasia is not a topic for my organisation. Pity.

Prior to my current job, I worked for inter-governmental organisations. I started with Kosovo, post war, and I was deployed as an human rights officer. For 10 years, I worked with crisis situations and I travelled- Ukraine, Macedonia, Croatia, and Afghanistan, working as an aid worker. Last October, I was due to move to Singapore for my current job.

In September, 2017, in the morning, I was getting ready to go to work. My friend was staying. At 7am, I suddenly had a massive headache and collapsed. My friend phoned an ambulance and I went to the hospital. My brain aneurysm ruptured and the surgeon operated on me. Two days later, I had a stroke. Five weeks later, I had regained consciousness. My speech was gone, my right arm and leg were damaged, and I was no longer moving to Singapore. My bleed on the brain was high blood pressure and health choices but in the end, its causes are unknown.

After the general hospital, I went to the rehab care. For three months, the professional staff provided speech therapy, psychology, occupational and physical therapy. Every day was torture. The nurses, doctors, and staff was wonderful but I felt that I was in the boot camp. The hospital was private, the meals are healthy and nutritious, my room was cosy, and dinner was 6.00pm. Who does dinner in the afternoon?! 　With hindsight, the therapists were patient but I sensed that they were doing they jobs, but for me, I was frustrated. I believed that these days in the rehab hospital, I mourned my life before the stroke. My future was uncertain and the therapists could not cure me. During the hospital, “aphasia” was an unknown word. My family and friends were baffled and perplex by the word “aphasia”. Its etymology is Greek and French. The speech therapists in the hospital told me that I had dyslexia, expressive aphasia, receptive aphasia, etc. The summary was not good. My brain was fine except speech but I’m afraid I was spiteful – actually, I was a bitch…

So, what’s my future? People are saying that maybe my stroke and brain aneursym have changed me. 　No, my personality is impatient, small talk is boring, my work is my passion, and Brexit is looming. Yes, my family said that my character is easy going and mellow now but maybe I regain my speech and pleasant and relax manner are gone. My motto is tomorrow and the future and win the lottery.