Inspiring Stroke Survivor Story: Ritesh Nandwani’s Journey of Resilience and Recovery

Recovery After Stroke

Ritesh Nandwani’s Incredible Stroke Survivor Story: Overcoming Stroke, Kidney Transplants, and Heartbreak.

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Highlights:

00:00 Introduction
01:34 The Beginning Of A Stroke Recovery Story
12:30 Dealing With Language Barriers, And Medical Procedures
19:09 Initial Treatment In A Public Hospital
25:40 TMS therapy for brain injury
33:03 Dealing With Kidney Failure, Dialysis, And Depression
40:19 COVID-19 Impact, And Support From Unexpected Friends
52:37 Dealing With Divorce And Finding Emotional Support
1:01:39 The Hardest Thing About The Stroke
1:04:35 Lessons From The Stroke

Transcript:

Introduction – Ritesh Nandwani

Bill Gasiamis 0:00
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the recovery after stroke podcast. This is episode 306. And my guest today is Ritesh Nandwani, who by the age of 38, had experienced two kidney transplants, a hemorrhagic stroke and the breakdown of his marriage.

Bill Gasiamis 0:18
In this compelling episode Ritesh shares his extraordinary journey of resilience and recovery, detailing the harrowing incident that led to his stroke. His challenges with the medical care in Hong Kong, the emotional toll of his health struggles, and how he found strength and hope through community support, and a positive outlook on life.

Bill Gasiamis 0:40
Now, just before we dive into the interview, I’d like to take a moment to mention my book The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened 10 tools for recovery and personal transformation. It’s a collection of inspiring stories from 10 stroke survivors, showcasing their incredible journey from adversity to personal growth, covering everything from nutrition, and exercise, to handling the emotional challenges.

Bill Gasiamis 0:41
This book is a beacon of hope for those on the road to recovery. And for more information, you can check out recoveryafterstroke.com/book or simply search for my name Bill Gasiamis on Amazon. And now it’s on with the show, retention and winning welcome to the podcast.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:27
Thank you. Bill, how are you?

Bill Gasiamis 1:29
I’m very well thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. Tell me a little bit about what happened to you.

The Beginning Of A Stroke Recovery Story

Ritesh Nandwani 1:34
Well, I had my stroke back in 2019. So five years ago, I was actually sailing with my girlfriend at the time we were sailing. And then on the last day of sailing after five days of sailing. I got hit in the head with the beam of the sailboat. So then that caused a hemorrhagic stroke.

Ritesh Nandwani 2:09
So at first, you know, just a lot of pain until eventually. It was actually two days later that I lost the full function my right side. I remember I was getting up getting ready for work. And I sat down and suddenly, I lost sensations right side and I started slurring. And then I woke up my girlfriend, then she rushed me to hospital.

Ritesh Nandwani 2:42
So that was at first the diagnosis of ischemic stroke. But then, later, a couple of days later, when we got another doctor’s opinion, he said, No, it’s a hemorrhagic stroke, and we need to treat it differently. So that’s essentially what happened to me. But yeah, and I guess, the fact that I’m also a type one diabetic since I was a kid. So that made it a little more challenging. And yeah, so that’s kind of what happened.

Bill Gasiamis 3:16
Were you an experienced sailor?

Ritesh Nandwani 3:19
No. So we’re actually learning. We’re more like learning. I knew a little bit my girlfriend at that time. So she wanted to learn as well. So okay, we did training together for five days. And on the last day, that’s when I got hit.

Bill Gasiamis 3:36
So that bar which holds the sales. I think I’ve seen it on TV, the wind changes, they change the position of the sale. And it swings across really violently.

Ritesh Nandwani 3:47
Yeah, yes, that’s the one and unfortunately, we already actually at the dock already so we were packing up, but unfortunately, no one had tied it up. So we had already gone there. You know, as we were getting out, I had already stood up. And no one had died it up.

Ritesh Nandwani 4:09
And boom, it hit me. And I was still wearing a helmet, though. But it was still pretty bad. And I guess the weather wasn’t good those days. But you know, we’re learning so we said this could be a good challenge to learn. And we had trainers with us and everything.

Bill Gasiamis 4:29
So because it wasn’t tied, was it a gust of wind that picked up a sail and pushed it over?

Ritesh Nandwani 4:36
Yeah, yeah.

Bill Gasiamis 4:38
So man, like you’re standing there, you’re wearing a helmet and it hits you on the head. I mean, for it to cause a hemorrhagic stroke. That would have been a dramatically violent and hard hit. It must have caught you fall on instead of like, swishing over.

Ritesh Nandwani 4:56
Oh yeah it smacked me, I got hit and knocked out. I was unconscious the whole time. But yeah, it was enough force for me to lose balance and fall.

Bill Gasiamis 5:10
When you got up, massive headache I imagine, where you disoriented? How were you experiencing that?

Ritesh Nandwani 5:17
When I got up yeah, I was a little bit disoriented, but after like maybe a couple of minutes I felt okay. Other than pain that was it. And I didn’t think it was anything serious at the time. So like, I was still okay, still able to talk move around. And then we eventually went back to the sailboat after that, so yeah, I had pain and that was it. That was there for like, maybe two days two to three until the day that actually I just lost sensation.

Bill Gasiamis 5:58
Yeah. You lost sensation on your right side or your left?

Ritesh Nandwani 6:02
Yes. My right side. Yeah.

Bill Gasiamis 6:04
On your right side. And then the last sensation and what did it feel like? What was it like to lose sensation? What were you thinking?

Ritesh Nandwani 6:15
There are so many things going through my head that I didn’t know, stroke didn’t come to mind. I thought something had happened. Something worse happened and I thought this was it. You know, I literally always tell my girlfriend, all the bank accounts.

Ritesh Nandwani 6:36
What to do, call my parents, everything and, you know, she was God bless her. She was sitting beside me. She was calling the ambulance on the other side, just taking over everything. And just say, okay, you know what, we’ll just take care of this, whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.

Ritesh Nandwani 6:54
But you know, she were there so that things are running through my head. I thought this was it. Yeah, I thought I’m done for. Yeah, because like, this was not my first accident, I’ve had a couple of bad accidents as well before, like one shattered my femur. Another time where I had eaten something wrong when I was traveling, it caused me to go into septic shock. And then they had to induce a coma for a day. So had these incidents before, but this is probably where I was scared the most.

Bill Gasiamis 7:39
At that time, did you connect it at all, to the hit in the head that you received a few days earlier?

Ritesh Nandwani 7:47
At the beginning, no. It was only later that because at first when we got to the hospital, they didn’t do an MRI. They did a CAT scan, not an MRI. And then they said, Oh, it’s a stroke. So that was it, then another cousin of mine whose mom had a stroke as well. So he just said I go visit a private doctor. The system is a little bit different first thing you do is to use public hospital. And then you have an option for your own doctor, after a few days.

Ritesh Nandwani 8:27
So that’s what we opted to do. Because things are we’re not clear on what was going on. And my mom had flew in Hong Kong and they were like, Okay, what is really going on, and no one’s giving a proper explanation. So that’s when we decided to get a second opinion. We went to a neurologist, and then he did a full body MRI checking everything then he said, okay, it’s a hemorrhagic stroke.

Ritesh Nandwani 8:57
And we have to do a different way of dealing with things as compared to ischemic stroke. So then that’s when they started, going through that process. And then he said is actually quite common. A lot of times they do misdiagnosed, ischemic instead of hemorrhagic and the treatment process would be different.

Ritesh Nandwani 9:21
But he said that if you don’t do a proper MRI, you’re not figured out. So, but that there is like let’s just do a full body MRI, check everything, if anything as if you do have any preexisting conditions that could affect it. And I told them I’m a type one diabetic. And then I’ve also had a kidney transplant before that, like nearly a decade ago before that. So they get these factors will affect it like but everything was stable. Sugar was stable at the time blood pressure, stable at the time, everything else was stable.

Bill Gasiamis 9:52
And then it kind of occurred to you that might be the hit on the head had some to do with it?

Ritesh Nandwani 10:03
Yes. Because he actually was a private doctor and detected that it seems like I had some trauma to the head. During the MRI so he asked me has anything happened recently, then I told him this is what happened because that’s mostly, would have caused it. It was actually pretty large was four centimeters in diameter. She goes, this could have caused that and that’s what we went with.

Intro 10:32
Yeah, if you’ve had a stroke, and you’re in recovery, you’ll know what a scary and confusing time it can be, you’re likely to have a lot of questions going through your mind. Like, how long will it take to recover? Will I actually recover? What things should I avoid? In case I make matters worse, doctors will explain things. But obviously, you’ve never had a stroke before, you probably don’t know what questions to ask.

Intro 10:57
If this is you, you may be missing out on doing things that could help speed up your recovery. If you’re finding yourself in that situation, stop worrying, and head to recoveryafterstroke.com where you can download a guide that will help you it’s called Seven Questions to ask your doctor about your stroke.

Intro 11:17
These seven questions are the ones Bill wished he’d asked when he was recovering from a stroke, they’ll not only help you better understand your condition, they’ll help you take a more active role in your recovery, head to the website now, recoveryafterstroke.com and download the guide. It’s free.

Bill Gasiamis 11:36
Well, now, we don’t need to discuss this if the question is not appropriate. But I’m gonna ask the question you can tell me if it is or isn’t. Is there some sort of compensation that you’re receiving for the injury that you received on that particular boat?

Ritesh Nandwani 11:52
No, I didn’t get any compensation. As for the training, like I had to sign a waiver for anything. And then when I was with the hospital, I was told that would be very challenging since I had preexisting conditions. And like, you know, we were like, it’s happened already. So going after, again, fighting with the hospital going through legal process. It just for us, it was like, okay, it’s done. Now let’s deal with it, rather than going through even more stress.

Ritesh Nandwani Dealing With Language Barriers, And Medical Procedures

Bill Gasiamis 12:30
Yeah. Okay, I get it. I totally get it. I was just curious. Because often people have a brain hemorrhage, and it impacts their, livelihood, it impacts everything, right. So it’s a very challenging time for all sorts of reasons. So that’s why I was wondering, but that’s okay. I totally get where you’re coming from. So he’s noticed the trauma, he’s connected the trauma to potentially the incident, and now they’ve got a way forward. You mentioned a little bit earlier that you’ve had a kidney transplant, is that because of the type one diabetes?

Ritesh Nandwani 13:14
I was actually misdiagnosed before. But I was given the wrong medication a couple of years ago, a year before the transplant and before my kidneys failed. So yeah, in the fact that that was type one diabetic didn’t help. So it made things worse, and my kidneys failed.

Ritesh Nandwani 13:38
And like if you had seen my the progress of the deterioration, I mean, of the kidneys. There was less than six months from having a normal creatine level to eight times normal creatine level. It was just three months and it happened so fast that when they bring in dialysis, they’re like, Yeah, we need to do a transplant as fast as we can. It was that abrupt.

Ritesh Nandwani 14:05
You said earlier that the scariest time was when you lost the feeling on your right side yeah. The kidney transplant didn’t make you feel concerned or worried about things. The kidney transplant did. It did but the thing is like, you know, when you’re going through a kidney transplant, I had a friend who had gone through kidney transplant. So you pretty much get back to normal life after surgery.

Ritesh Nandwani 14:37
So it’s just a matter of waiting till you get a donor and going through the whole process. Yes, it’s a tedious and painful process, especially dialysis. It just takes the life out of you. And it kind of stall everything for you. But as you’ve done your transplant, things do pretty much get back to normal.

Ritesh Nandwani 14:56
So that okay, and I was still able to talk, able to move to do everything, I was still okay with that. But with the stroke, it was something very different, you know, where it’s, it’s a feeling that you don’t know. And when at that point, whenever when I was going to the hospital and everything, going to the ambulance and all that, there were so many unknowns.

Ritesh Nandwani 15:28
That was like, okay, and I guess, because I was conscious the whole time as well, that made it even more scary.

Bill Gasiamis 15:38
At least with a dialysis and the kidney transplant, you know, the procedure, you do this for a little while when a kidney has come available, you go through a process that happens, and then this happens, and then you move on, and you’ve got proof of a successful surgery previously, you know what that looks like, you know, what the person’s life is like, and it’s more, like, I’m just gonna go through the motions here. And when I get to the other side, this is likely the result. Whereas you wake up one morning and you can’t feel your right side, and it’s what the heck is going on?

Ritesh Nandwani 16:15
So yeah, the fear of the unknown if, for lack of a better term. Yeah, I was in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, as you’re going to the emergency they don’t speak English. And I didn’t know Cantonese. So that was another thing. Like, okay, I didn’t know what’s going on. And because everyone was in a rush to get on with it, no one’s actually telling you, you know, you’re going through a stroke. This is happening. No one’s telling you.

Ritesh Nandwani 16:48
So you’re just seeing people rushing around you and all the noise and everything. And the hospital results kind of overwhelmed a lot of people so there’s so many people and yeah, it was too much at once, I guess.

Bill Gasiamis 17:05
Makes sense. Were you in Hong Kong on a vacation? On holidays?

Ritesh Nandwani 17:11
I was living there. I was living and working there at that time.

Bill Gasiamis 17:17
And even though Hong Kong is known for English, the English language it’s not commonly spoken in medical?

Ritesh Nandwani 17:25
No. The local doctors and nurses still prefer talking in Cantonese. Yeah, you know, it’s still their mother tongue and English was more common in the private hospitals. Yeah, in the public hospitals. Yeah, there were some people that knew how to speak English. But I guess when going through all that stress at the same time, mostly were just talking in Cantonese.

Bill Gasiamis 18:00
I can imagine what that’d be like I was frustrated in a English-speaking Hospital in in Melbourne, Australia here when they wouldn’t speak to me about what was going on. And that would keep me in the loop of you know, my condition and the situation that I was in and I was getting really frustrated and they were talking to me in English every so often but I still felt a little you know, this is not right.

Bill Gasiamis 18:25
I feel like I need more information you need to be telling me what’s going on I need to know one way or another what’s happening. So I can instead of using my head to overthink things, I can just prepare for things and I can sort of work out you know what my role is going to be in all of this I don’t want to be passive and just sit in there. And having you guys make all the decisions without consulting me.

Bill Gasiamis 18:54
So I can imagine you’re in Hong Kong. speaking Cantonese you don’t speak Cantonese. And you’re wondering how bad is it? Is it worse than it seems is a better than it seems?

Ritesh Nandwani’s Initial Treatment In A Public Hospital

Ritesh Nandwani 19:09
And then even asked about you know, when they started so the first week I was in the main hospital, secondary get transferred to another place and where they transferred me I was pretty much the youngest guy there no one else was my age. Everyone else was in their 60s and 70s.

Ritesh Nandwani 19:31
And I remember there were three of us in my room. And I was the only one who could actually still have functional my left side while the other guy like you know, he was eating through a feeding tube. Another one was pretty much catatonic as well.

Ritesh Nandwani 19:53
So kind of felt different and because it was so low in the public health care system you weren’t allowed visitors, you’re only allowed for two hours a day and that was it. So it was quite challenging. And my girlfriend that time she would sneak in the hospital just to stay in the room with me. And then it came to a point later that they agreed, okay, someone can stay with you.

Bill Gasiamis 20:22
Yeah. I remembered when I went to hospital. I remember when I went to hospital, the first time I was put in, because there was no beds. I was put in the spinal ward. And everyone, there had a spinal cord injury. And they weren’t moving any part of their body.

Bill Gasiamis 20:42
And it was really tough to be in there. Because I didn’t know what extent my injury was again, I had a brain hemorrhage, but I didn’t know. What does it even mean, I didn’t know what a brain hemorrhage was before that. And now I’m in a room with people who had spinal injuries, and it was really tough to try to come to terms with what I’m seeing, and why I’m here.

Bill Gasiamis 21:08
A little while later, they moved me into another ward where there was other people who’ve had strokes. And that settled down my nerves a little bit made it a little bit better. It was tough to witness those guys in the worst part of their injury, which just after it’s happened, you know? And they were really struggling. So I know what you mean. How long did you spend in hospital? And how did they treat your injury?

Ritesh Nandwani 21:39
So I was in both hospitals in two weeks. It wasn’t the advice of the private doctor that I leave the public hospital. So we took his advice left public hospital, then he was looking after me after that. So at that time, we had stayed in a service apartment at first because my old place was not big enough to even accommodate a wheelchair in Hong Kong, ours were quite small. So it was a little bit more challenging. And we decided to get a service apartment for at least a month until we found the place that was more accessible.

Bill Gasiamis 22:27
So the doctor would come to your place where you’re staying?

Ritesh Nandwani 22:31
Yeah, so my service apartment was maybe just a block away. For less than even a block. I was down the road from where my doctor’s clinic was. So my mom was and my girlfriend at the time, they would take me to the hospital, usually every day.

Bill Gasiamis 22:54
But was that kind of like just where you were staying? So you can be nearby? And then you would go into the clinic and get treated? How did they treat it? What did they do to resolve the blood vessel that had leaked?

Ritesh Nandwani 23:06
Well, they didn’t operate on it or do anything. So for that they really recorded me more to rest and then, you know, the first month, they asked me to not do any just rest as much as I can. And to you know, avoid stress. Then it was only after the first month that I started getting it therapist and tried to at least start moving it.

Bill Gasiamis 23:35
Okay, So you’re they’ve noticed that your right side is impacted negatively, right?

Ritesh Nandwani 23:51
Yes.

Bill Gasiamis 23:51
And was there any protocol put in place? Was there any thing that they were going to do to help support you overcome that condition or to rehabilitate that?

Ritesh Nandwani 24:02
In the public hospital, at that point, they didn’t tell me much. They really didn’t say you know, in the morning Sunday, they wanted to do therapy right away. And then that’s actually what happened. That was the main reason why the private doctor got me out. He didn’t want me to do anything at first.

Ritesh Nandwani 24:25
He said he wanted me to rest at least for the first month. So they gave me some brain vitamins and some medication to help me with that. And they obviously went through, you know, all my medication and adjusted my insulin, gave me some blood pressure medication at first. So they adjusted all that in that span of time, and fortunately I didn’t have to do any surgery or anything like that

Bill Gasiamis 24:52
So perhaps he was worried that putting you on the pressure to exert yourself might cause a bigger leak. That makes ense. And then after about a month or so, then what happened? How did you go through the rest of the process?

Ritesh Nandwani 25:11
So then when I went to clinic that day, the main doctor because he was actually neurosurgeon, the one I had. So he gave me to his partner was not a neurologist, who would essentially be taking care of my therapy, since she’s doing something with a physical therapist there. And then she was talking with the process of what we can do together with my family.

TMS therapy for brain injury

Ritesh Nandwani 25:40
You know, like, what exercises or whatever to do, and they kept physical therapists for me that I had to go three times a week with, and then even did, I forgot what therapy it was, but they use magnetic stimulation on the brain. I think it was called MTS or something like that. So it was relatively new in Hong Kong at the time, I think I was the first patient to go through therapy.

Ritesh Nandwani 26:09
But this works well in Germany, and they felt it did cause independence a really couldn’t move my hand or anything. In fact, even talking was very difficult to me time. After like, maybe two rounds of the MTS, I started getting function back from my hand, I still don’t have full function, but I could start moving my fingers a little bit. And sensation was normalizing. Then I could start talking as well, and then we’re just kept doing therapy after that.

Bill Gasiamis 26:46
So was that a magnetic brain therapy?

Ritesh Nandwani 26:50
It was some form of stimulation.

Bill Gasiamis 26:55
Was it TMS Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation?

Ritesh Nandwani 26:58
That one yes. That’s the one. TMS.

Bill Gasiamis 27:02
As soon as I put it up, it comes up. I’ve never heard of it, I’m gonna look into it. Okay, that’s really interesting. Because there’s a couple of things that people can do that really do help heal the brain, one of them is hyperbaric oxygen therapy that really seems to support people’s recovery in heals parts of the brain that previously were not able to be healed. So you notice such a big result that quickly, like literally after a couple of sessions.

Ritesh Nandwani 27:32
I was getting three sessions a week. So probably the third week. Yeah. The third week, that’s an I noticed more improvement. That thing is the way that therapy was done. Like they would do the TMS and within half an hour, I would do physical therapy. So there’s adults when it’s most effective, initially right after half an hour. So it wasn’t the same clinic that like the clinic was on the 18th floor in the 17th. floor was a physical therapy, surgical one for down against art therapy right away.

Bill Gasiamis 28:08
So how many more weeks of therapy did you do?

Ritesh Nandwani 28:15
Well, I’m still doing therapy. Now. I still continue, I haven’t stopped.

Bill Gasiamis 28:19
What TMS?

Ritesh Nandwani 28:21
TMS So I did two rounds, stopped, then again after a couple of months started again. But this time, it’s three times a week, we’re doing two sessions a week. So pretty much did TMS about four or five rounds. But it wasn’t continuous. The first few rounds are continuous, then stop for a while then start again, then stopped and started again. Until it was like once a week.

Bill Gasiamis 28:50
And then you notice the improvements decreasing and not getting as obvious as they did at the beginning.

Ritesh Nandwani 28:57
It was still a lot of improvement because it’s like actually after the first year, I was already walking with a cane. I even went to Paris for a month because my girlfriend at that time we were already engaged. So she was my fiance, went to France and her mom is a doctor in Paris.

Ritesh Nandwani 29:24
Actually in Champaign, so her mom actually flew down when I had a stroke. She came visit me he stayed with us for two days. Then went back and then we went to Paris she was like okay, there’s very good facility center near where you stay, I always actually there for a month. And I was walking without any aid at the center.

Ritesh Nandwani 29:51
And unfortunately, this is March 2020, February, March 2020. And then, since she was very high up in the medical board in Champaign, she was like, you know, we might have a lockdown next two, three days. And and I suggest you guys fly back to Hong Kong. So within the next 12 hours, we left Paris came back to Hong Kong. And sure enough, a lockdown happened.

Ritesh Nandwani 30:21
In Hong Kong at in the beginning, you were still doing continuing with therapy, then when things got pretty bad in Hong Kong, all the therapy centers got shut down. They’re all converted into COVID facilities. And this is where I really had a challenge. Like I had to stop therapy completely. And even before I was doing water therapy, aqua therapy, I had to stop that because even the the pool in our building was close. And if ever I would have to any therapy, it will be done via zoom.

Ritesh Nandwani 30:55
Which became a challenge. I guess it’s not the same and challenge at that point was my therapist. I think he kind of took advantage of situation. He was doing Zoom and he having four patients at once. Doing it via video is quite challenging and then you doing it with four patients at once. It was extremely challenging.

Ritesh Nandwani 31:25
So I guess you know, at that point, there were so many patients, but not enough therapists in Hong Kong.

Bill Gasiamis 31:33
Do you think that your time on dialysis and waiting for a kidney transplant and recovering from that do you think that has helped you in your recovery from the brain hemorrhage?

Ritesh Nandwani 31:47
Well, after during dialysis, while I was doing dialysis, trying to do therapy, that was extremely difficult. Because when resumed dialysis, that day is pretty much gone. I couldn’t move much therapy was just extremely challenging. And then also the fact that at the same time, like I had already gotten married, but then a year later, after my marriage.

Ritesh Nandwani 32:17
It didn’t work out. I found out my wife was actually cheating behind my back, with a couple of guys, and then I was going to Dallas at the same time trying to figure out therapy. And then you know, at that point, even work started becoming a challenge.

Ritesh Nandwani 32:35
Like, things are not going well for work. So and then they got the call and like things are getting quite expensive. So everything was going on. And at this point, we already separated. So I was going through not only going through the stroke, I was going through kidney failure.

Ritesh Nandwani 32:58
The stress of work, and then I was diagnosed with depression after that.

Ritesh Nandwani Dealing With Kidney Failure, Dialysis, And Depression

Bill Gasiamis 33:03
Of course makes sense. I didn’t realize that the kidney issue and the stroke issue were happening at the same time, I thought the kidney issue was way earlier.

Ritesh Nandwani 33:15
So it already happened about you know, in the early 2010s, I think even before that. I went to a second transplant, so it failed again. A year after the stroke, it failed again. So at first the like, let’s try to do plasmapheresis to save it. So I went through plasmapheresis this was December 2019. It went through plasmapheresis. So after I did that, I was good for like three months. But then when I did a blood test while I was in Paris, that’s when my mother in law, she’s like she saw it and then she’s like, I think there might be something wrong with your kidney looks like the plasmapheresis didn’t work.

Ritesh Nandwani 34:09
So when I come back after like, you know, we got call that things. You know, we came back to Hong Kong, and he’s like, Oh, me two weeks after I came back. He’s like, Yeah, we gonna start dialysis. So then we started dialysis.

Bill Gasiamis 34:25
Okay, second round of dialysis. So you knew what that was all about? And at the same time, you’re recovering from the brain injury?

Ritesh Nandwani 34:34
Yeah, correct. And when I started dialysis, he’s like, you might need to do a transplant but because they caught it very early, I had much more time. So we knew during COVID You can’t do anything so I was just waiting and waiting. So I was doing dialysis the whole time.

Ritesh Nandwani 34:53
And then at the end of 2020 my kidney which has been transplanted before, started this thing started going into rejection. So they’re like we’re going through surgery, now we’re gonna have to pull it out. And I’ll be back on my old kidney, and continue with dialysis. So I went through that, and that was going through that.

Ritesh Nandwani 35:22
And then later, they took the Kinney end of 2020, at this time I was already married. And then 2021 came, and that’s what like I had a significant weight loss. I was down to 45 kilos at the time. And I usually weigh between 65 to 70. So I lost all that weight, I was extremely skinny. He you looked at me, I just felt sick. So 2020, for me, was extremely challenging. 2021 came along.

Ritesh Nandwani 36:04
And that was when I was going through again, the work and you know, the cheating, 2021 was even more tough than 2020.

Bill Gasiamis 36:17
That’s too much for one person to have to go through the small amount of time that you went through it. So you were depressed right? Like, as if you wouldn’t be. But what were you thinking at the time? What’s your mindset? Like? Do you know what I mean? Like, are you thinking, I’m still going to keep fighting or it’s time to give up? How do you keep bloody fighting after all of that stuff.

Ritesh Nandwani 36:45
I was ready to give up. So you know, the cheating and everything I found out in July of 2021. And I remember, so my ex wife now we’re undergoing a divorce. But at that time, in 2021, in August, she moved out. And then I remember it was the middle of August that I was so depressed that I’d really gone to the doctor for depression, they started putting me on an antidepressant at the time.

Ritesh Nandwani 37:25
So I remember there’s one point where I didn’t even want to get out of bed to go to dialysis. And I was fortunate that the helper who was staying like, she wouldn’t stay, but she would come a couple of times a week and she found me in bed like we had scheduled for dialysis that day. So the first time, like I’m not feeling well, I don’t want to go today so I didn’t go then.

Ritesh Nandwani 37:55
She came and saw me another time. And she said that my bed was just a mess there was urine all over it and I was pretty much in a very different state. She said like I couldn’t even it was like I was drunk. But I was just so depressed. I didn’t want to go to dialysis, I was at that point where I just kind of ready to give up. And then it was she who actually got me in a car brought me to the hospital called my ex wife and everything, then they treated me to hospital for that.

Ritesh Nandwani 38:30
So obviously, they had to do dialysis again, but this time, they’re like, we’re gonna keep you in the hospital for a week. So they kept me in the hospital for a week until all my levels became normal and stable. So then at that time, even my, my ex wife, she decided to come and stay in the hospital with me. So we had talked about things and we were trying to work things out but eventually didn’t.

Ritesh Nandwani 38:59
Then I was in antidepressants for a short while so it was about two or three months. Then after that, you know I think this is something worth fighting for. I may be on my own at this point, but I’m going to fight for it. And then after that happened we both started figuring out what was going on.

Ritesh Nandwani 39:23
So even the maid of honor at our wedding actually ended up becoming a very close friend of mine as I was going through the process, so she was there so she and my ex wife don’t even talk anymore that’s how bad the situation became.

Ritesh Nandwani 39:39
But eventually she became very close to me and I remember there was a point where in, it was close to my 41st birthday which is in December so around October November December like yeah let’s do something different for your birthday this year. We can do your 40th birthday. Let’s do something. I’m like, you know, let’s see I’m not sure.

Ritesh Nandwani 40:00
And I remember one night, probably in October, she just come to my house. And then she’s like, we’re going out tonight. And I’m like no I don’t want to she’s like, no, we’re going out. We’re going for a boat party. And I used to love going to boat parties before my stroke. So like, how am I going to go on a boat, I’m in a wheelchair.

COVID-19 Impact, And Support From Unexpected Friends

Ritesh Nandwani 40:19
She goes, don’t worry, that’s my problem. And sure enough, I get to the port, she has people waiting to get me on the wheelchair to get on the boat. So they literally carried me in a wheelchair, on the boat, got a place for me there. And I guess the story like, because it was a lot of my ex wife’s friends were there. You know, obviously, she was the maid of honor.

Ritesh Nandwani 40:47
And so at this point, rumors spread around, they all knew the story. So they all ended up, you know, oh, let’s talk. So I ended up getting close to her friends at that point. And the maid of honor also invited a bunch of my friends, that was the first time in a long while that I actually had a big smile on my face that actually felt there were people around me.

Ritesh Nandwani 41:13
And then they also found out about the depression thing. So I remember, from that day, till the time, when I returned back home in the Philippines, every day, someone a friend of mine, or the maid of honor or something, they would all be at my house, either were just sitting, talking, or you would take me to a restaurant, or we would go out or something.

Ritesh Nandwani 41:36
There was someone there. So I think that was the time in my life where I really felt like and some of these guys I just met in December. Like you know, some of them I just met and till now we’re so close. So that was like one of the good things that had happened.

Ritesh Nandwani 41:52
Through all this. I felt there was this support structure from a lot of people that I didn’t know before. Yeah, it was remember this was COVID and a lot of my good friends had left because of the situation. So I felt really alone at the time especially your your wife at that time doing all that. And my close friend, my best friend was staying in Abu Dhabi at the time.

Ritesh Nandwani 42:24
And a very close friend of mine was staying in Australia and my family was in the Philippines. In Hong Kong, I was feeling extremely lonely in Hong Kong the house is so small that you don’t only feel lonely, you feel claustrophobic. And the way to lock down and Hong Kong where you can’t go out it was so challenging.

Ritesh Nandwani 42:46
But then when these friend started coming over to the house, at least I felt there was something I felt like yeah, you know, I can get through this.

Bill Gasiamis 42:56
Community, you can’t do it alone. Everybody needs community. Everybody needs something around them. There’s no way. You know, okay, and you recover. And then if you recover, and you’re going to be lonely, then what are you going to do? Like you have to reach out and find people? You might not have been in the situation where you could reach out.

Bill Gasiamis 43:15
But I experienced something similar people who I didn’t know, people who I didn’t have great relationships with. Were the people that helped out the most. And it was so weird, I didn’t understand that. I appreciate it, of course, and my really good friends now. But they’re the ones that did the majority of the emotional support.

Bill Gasiamis 43:37
I’m not sure why. But it’s a really gift, man. It’s a really great gift that you received, you know, by these people to come around you and to support you, especially with all the stuff that you had been through, as well as then understanding what had happened to your relationship.

Bill Gasiamis 43:55
Yeah, it’s pretty cool that they did that man and that they supported you. And it’s a testament to how far you’ve come. We can’t do it without people. Yeah. So are you still using a wheelchair?

Ritesh Nandwani 44:12
No. So as of last year, July, I’m off the wheelchair completely. Although I do use an electric wheelchair when I travel, because I’ve gotten back into my routine of traveling for work. So it’s only my travel that actually use a wheelchair or when I’m extremely exhausted, which thankfully, since July has happened only once I used the wheelchair again.

Ritesh Nandwani 44:39
So now I walk around with a cane and I can notice that things are improving a lot more like I did the second transplant in December 2022. So, from December 22 like maybe July 20 July 2023. This time the recovery from a transplant was much smoother.

Ritesh Nandwani 45:02
I didn’t have any infections, compared to like the first time that where I had two major infections and I was in hospital a lot more, this time I wasn’t. And it was already back in therapy after like, six months after transplant. I was back in physical therapy, and I regained walking with the gain much faster.

Ritesh Nandwani 45:23
My stamina has gone up, like, you know, before, it was a struggle to even do like two or three steps a day. Now it’s like, okay, 5000, no problem, I can do it. And then I’ve gotten back to weight training, as well, under a doctor’s supervision. So even like, now I’m back to like 64 kilos. So I’m close to my normal weight.

Ritesh Nandwani 45:47
I even see the progression, like I remember before, like, on the leg press, is I remember when I started, I was struggling with five kilos. Now during over, like, just this week, I had a personal record of 70 kilos. So I can see the progression, and this time was much faster. You know, it’s gotten so much better compared to the way it was even two years ago.

Bill Gasiamis 46:16
Ritesh I absolutely love your story, man. It’s such an interesting story. The setbacks, you know, there’s a lot of them and people a lot a lot of people wouldn’t manage to, you know, overcome so many setbacks, and you’ve overcome them again, and again and again. You know, a word comes to mind like resilient.

Bill Gasiamis 46:39
Would you consider yourself very resilient? Is there some kind of a ingredient that’s necessary to help you to be resilient. Clearly community is. What else is there? I don’t know. Like, I don’t get it. Because it seems like your life has been put on hold so many times, because of all these conditions.

Bill Gasiamis 47:03
I don’t know, like, give me a little bit of your philosophy in life, how do you grapple with all of the stuff that you’ve been through at such a young age? Okay, 38. Now, I know a lot of older people who are in their 80s and who go, ah, you know, I’ve lived 80 years, I’m bound to have something wrong with me. You know, it’s great that there’s medical help, you know, we’ll just go through it, we’ll overcome it, we’ll get there. But at 38 I was 37. And I had my first brain hemorrhage.

Bill Gasiamis 47:30
And I didn’t think I had a philosophy that was very, at the beginning, right, that was very kind of encouraging and supporting of myself and I couldn’t see the silver lining yet. There was no silver lining. To tell me a little bit about your life’s philosophy. How do you get through life?

Ritesh Nandwani 47:54
I’ve had a positive outlook most of my life, I’m not gonna lie. But there were two times in my life where I never felt more sad, more alone and more depressed. One was when my best friend passed away. That was when I was a 25 years old, passed away very young spinal complications, and he had passed away.

Ritesh Nandwani 48:19
So that was the only time that was the first time in my life where there was no emotion, I always felt so numb. The second time, was when I was going through all this. You know, I found out about the cheating. And I was going to dialysis and everything. And there was another time where I remember as soon as I found out, I became numb, I couldn’t talk.

Ritesh Nandwani 48:42
And I didn’t tell anyone I just went is this own bubble of mines. And quiet then then, you know,

Ritesh Nandwani 48:52
it was like after a week that I started crying and started doing this. But at the same time, I knew there was something wrong already with me mentally.

Ritesh Nandwani 49:01
So one of the first things I did was, I’m not going to call a friend, I’m gonna look for a therapist.

Ritesh Nandwani 49:10
That’s what it looked for a therapist because I felt even though I told my friends, especially about what I was dealing with my marriage, I knew they would say things about my ex wife, which I didn’t want to go through, because I knew my ex wife had her own mental problems, which I’d already known about. So I knew, I mean, or at least I felt that if we want to try to work on this, I need to stay away from that negativity. There might be my your friends or whatever, but I know all of them what they’re gonna say.

Ritesh Nandwani 49:39
100% and they’re gonna make a villain. Yeah, yes. So at first I was like, I’m gonna go therapist, look for a therapist. So eventually, I went through three therapists until I found the right one. Then she actually helped me kind of short things out. And then especially when I was going through depression,

Ritesh Nandwani 50:00
I’m actually I met her after the bout of depression when I knew I was depressed. After the doctors been antidepressant and this point when I had met her, I found out and then I was even trying to figure out now it was not only dealing with my issues, I was trying to figure out my ex wives in mental state and her her issues in which he was going through. So for the understanding her Yes, exactly, at this point you. That’s a great move. I love that because then you don’t take it personally. Yeah. And also this point, like,

Ritesh Nandwani 50:37
we were already I was trying to figure out what if it could be safe.

Ritesh Nandwani 50:43
So I found, I found a therapist who had that me the psychologist that actually written about that type of issue. I found him tracked him down. He’s a, he’s a therapist from Tennessee in the US, actually reached out to him to talk them attended a three day workshop, I understand not only her, I don’t understand her marriage and myself. So I kind of understood that we were going through and

Ritesh Nandwani 51:14
in Hong Kong, it’s like, the way the legal structures again, would get a guy to wait two years until I could file for divorce, if at least one of us strikes, or probably both of us agree there’ll be one year. But at this point, she didn’t want anything. And I said even at the same time, her case, on the average takes about two years. So they try to go through that process. So I said, Okay, this kind of synchronous two years.

Ritesh Nandwani 51:43
I’ll wait for two years, I’ll not only try to work in marriage, but also work on myself. And yes, my ex wife and I were still talking at this point. And the topic of divorce had come out maybe once or twice, but not again. So it felt like there was still some hope. But it was only when, so we reached two years in August of last year. And then I was able to fly out in November. So when I actually went to Hong Kong in November, to sign divorce papers that’s when actually I even told my parents that was the first time I told them what really happened. My cousin started finding out.

Dealing With Divorce And Finding Emotional Support

Ritesh Nandwani 52:22
Actually there were a lot of rumors in Hong Kong, because the guy she cheating on me with I knew him. So that was the other thing and then even now at this point. His friends found out, and his friends actually ended up being good friends of mine because they didn’t like what happened it’s such a small community over there, especially those that stayed in Hong Kong during COVID.

Ritesh Nandwani 52:50
A lot of us became close because most people most expats left Hong Kong, and we all knew each other. So when the cheating happened, and everyone found out, I got even more friends this time or more supporters with the whole thing. And it became kind of like, okay, now people know, and I had all this question. So like, now, I since I’m dealing with it, I’m okay, with what has happened? Now I start, anyone asked me a question. I’m not gonna hide it. I told them what happened. And you know, I tried my best to work on it.

Bill Gasiamis 53:33
I love it. In my book, there’s a chapter that talks about friends, and how you have to be careful what you tell people about what has happened to you, and about how you’re going about your recovery. Because their desire to, to help sometimes gets in the way because they’re not doing, they’re not doing the type of help that you need. They’re just doing the overwhelming over the top kind of help.

Bill Gasiamis 53:59
And then there’s also the people who you tell that I’m going to do something and they take a negative, like, why would you want to do that. And they kind of try and change your mind about it. So I really make a point in the book to sort of say you need to hold your cards close to your chest, and you need to not tell a lot of people about what you’re doing and you made an amazing move there by keeping all that stuff to yourself.

Bill Gasiamis 54:25
And then most importantly, seeking out a therapist. So not only are you kind of avoiding all the difficult conversations with all the people who love you, but you’re dealing with it in a really professional and a really interesting way which is I’m actually going and getting professional help somebody who knows how to deal with these types of issues.

Bill Gasiamis 54:49
We’re not just getting emotional responses from the people that that love me. We’re getting like real responses real approaches you did a course three day course. I mean, that’s a awesome move to go through that process and deal with all of that. Would you call it all of that trauma? Because it would have been traumatic?

Ritesh Nandwani 55:11
Yeah, definitely. It definitely left some scars. But those are scars now that, you know, it’s been nearly three years, five years since a stroke. And in three years since the marriage was collapsing. It’s now only that okay. It is only talking about it to clear, obviously, there are a lot of rumors. I come from a very, very big family. My mom’s side, like, you know, they’re about almost 19 siblings. I mean, not all our siblings, but very close cousins.

Ritesh Nandwani 55:46
And we recently had a wedding about three months ago. That was the first time I attended a family wedding in about seven, eight years. And we usually have a wedding, one wedding or two weddings a year in our family. From my mom’s side, my dad’s side is eight siblings. So I come from a very big family. And both my mom and dad, my dad’s youngest, my mom’s second youngest. So now when it went for the wedding happened, in dubai our family wedding was just 800 people.

Ritesh Nandwani 56:17
It was a big wedding. And I haven’t seen any of them in ages. But there were so many different rumors about what happened between between my ex wife and I. And at this point, I remember I sat down with, first a few of my close ones. And then they asked me what really happened. So I told them exactly what happened.

Ritesh Nandwani 56:42
I guess not only to just you know, to make things clear that I am okay. But also to set the record straight. So many things are just not clear for everyone. People are just wondering, and all that. So it’s like, I have nothing against her. I’m thankful my ex wife was with me during that time in my life, where I needed her. And she and I might not talk anymore, but her mom and I are still in touch.

Ritesh Nandwani 57:15
Her mom, God bless her really treat me like a son. Going through the whole process. You know, she doesn’t mention her daughter or anything. But she really looks at me as a son.

Bill Gasiamis 57:31
I love that you set the record straight and sort of stopped the rumor mill because the rumor mill can be terrible. And it’s never helpful. Really it never ever helped. And it’s great that you set the record straight and you’re just sort of this is what happened, this is how it was this is where I’m at, and everyone can move on with their own life now.

Ritesh Nandwani 57:52
Exactly. And because I come from a big family, a lot of these rumors, they come out pretty nasty in some cases. But I still tell them like I don’t have any resentment against her, in the beginning yes, I did I hated her for what I was going through, what she did to me, but now I’m like, at peace. I have to go through that.

Bill Gasiamis 58:18
It seems like all the things that you’ve been through. It seems like this has been the most significant one, though, because you’ve spoken about the relationship break down more than you’ve spoken about the two kidney transplants more than you’ve spoken about the stroke. It seems like it’s the one that has made you more wise, more kind of educated and more understanding than the other conditions. Is that accurate?

Ritesh Nandwani 58:49
Yes you could say so. With the stroke that happening like you know, I kind of understood the physical nature of it. Right? So you kind of understand that now you kind of don’t know what to do. I was just thinking of it more logically. This is how we do about it tried to fix it. When it came to the emotional side it was more challenging.

Ritesh Nandwani 59:18
And they go hand in hand. As much as you need to try to compartmentalize they go hand in hand. And I’m sure my stroke, definitely affected situation. It didn’t make things easy and you know, the transplant and everything. Most people would be overwhelmed. And I get that so I have a feeling that affected that a lot.

Ritesh Nandwani 59:44
You know, she could have been overwhelmed, and my ex wife and I had a big age gap. We’re 15 years apart she’s much younger, so I’m sure this really affects her and it all went tied in together. So I felt both affected each other in a lot of sense.

Bill Gasiamis 1:00:07
You know, relationships around stroke do break down a lot. And a lot of the time, it’s got to do with the person who hasn’t had a stroke the partner struggles to deal with their partner being unwell and not having the resources and not being equipped enough to support them through that.

Bill Gasiamis 1:00:26
And that people take it personally I had a stroke, and then they left me. And I get it. That makes complete sense, right? What a time. But I see that when you can get over the initial challenge of I had a stroke, and she left me. And when you get over all of that the person who left you after you had a stroke probably did you a favor.

Bill Gasiamis 1:00:50
Because if they’re not capable of supporting you through stroke, and if they’re going to be a burden to have around and make your life harder, better that they’re not around. You know, and as hard as that is, and it’s emotional, and it ruins a family and changes things. It’s such a bold move for somebody to make the decision to leave, because I’m not suggesting that everybody does, but it’s such a bold move, because they are probably going to make the stroke recovery worse by being around in a shitty relationship.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:01:32
Dealing with the pain now, going through the pain now, finishing it off, rather than dealing with a later.

The Hardest Thing About The Stroke For Ritesh Nandwani

Bill Gasiamis 1:01:38
Yes dragging it out and making it more painful for longer. Unbelievable story, man. That’s profound stuff that I heard from you today. Like, I really appreciate the fact that you shared that you’re so open. Tell me a little bit about what do you think the hardest thing about stroke was?

Ritesh Nandwani 1:02:03
I think every stroke was different. And there’s so many unknowns. Because, you know, I’ve spoken with people who had strokes and my family, like one of my cousin’s, he’s had a stroke. fully recovered. My aunt had a stroke in 2006. And until now, she can’t speak.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:02:23
So I’ve had these two people who I’m close with and I see one who’s completely normal one who’s not where do I fall in all this? Now I went through it. I was like, Okay, what happened? Like, even my cousin’s struggling, didn’t know. He had told me like, I met him probably two weeks after my stroke. And then he said, look at where I am today, and you can get back on your feet. So there was a lot of hope there.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:02:53
And I was like, Okay, now, it’s a broad spectrum. Every stroke is different. So where do I fall in this? And where do I go here?

Bill Gasiamis 1:03:03
So it’s like an identity crisis there? Was there?

Ritesh Nandwani 1:03:05
Yes. Yeah. And, you know, also during all this time, what I noticed a lot of people is the stroke defines you in a lot of cases. But it was COVID. That actually helped me with that. Have you helped me deal with that. Because like, so my word it’s, there’s a lot of meetings and like, before, I was traveling a lot, like within a month, I spent like maybe six days in Hong Kong, the rest of the time I’m traveling, so I’m always meeting people here and there. But in this case, with COVID.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:03:44
Everything was via zoom. I remember I did a one year I was working with a venture capital fund in the US. I finished I ended up finishing my MBA and everything. Nobody knew I had a stroke, I started my MBA in 2017, 2019 I graduated, other than my classmates, and my professor knew about it. Anyone else that I met online, no one knew what I was going through.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:04:15
So that kind of like, it didn’t define me as the guy who had a stroke or the guy can’t walk. It didn’t define me anymore. And I kept that with I didn’t tell anyone until things started opening when I met him to like you’re in a wheelchair I go yeah, they’re like what happened? We’ve been talking with you for a year we didn’t know. I’m like yeah.

Lessons From The Stroke Recovery Story

Bill Gasiamis 1:04:35
I like that. I like that because it didn’t become you know, Ritesh, the guy that had a stroke. It’s just Ritesh. Right? I love that. What has stroke taught you?

Ritesh Nandwani 1:04:46
So the stroke, never look at it as a wall that stops you. Look at it as a wall that shows you another path in life that where you’re supposed to go, that wall put down, maybe that’s not where you’re meant to go. It just shows you another direction, don’t look at it as a flat wall, look at it as wall that’s kind of curve or, you know, diagonal that’s pushing you in a direction where you should have gone more. And definitely learn to appreciate things a lot more. Go on a different direction. And there’s so many things that you value more now.

Bill Gasiamis 1:05:41
The stroke has done that you, did two kidney transplants make you feel that way?

Ritesh Nandwani 1:05:48
The second one did a lot. The first one, the first one. So I was always the guy who had a lot of adventures that I wanted to go to I wanted to do, but never got around to doing it. I was always scared to do things alone. So after my first transplant, that’s when I started figuring out who I was. And the first thing I did actually, after my first transplant was I didn’t stick around with the same group of friends that I had.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:06:24
The group of friends that I had in Hong Kong at that time like they were the guys that most of them were married or getting married that time, some had kids, and with the guys I usually hang out with we’ve been going to the same place every weekend, get wasted and not do anything else. But I wanted to start meeting people started wanting to try new things. And they didn’t want to go.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:06:53
So I’m going to just go around, go to Hong Kong Island and just meet people. And I started meeting people that way. And the good thing in Hong Kong is when you go say hi to someone. Next thing you know, they’re your friend in the same night. And that’s what happened. And at first I didn’t believe that was possible. But it was it was so much easier even built my confidence in talking to people.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:07:19
So I was just going up to random people or like we’re talking to talking to something, we talk and started having fun. That’s where I met a lot of my close friends like my best friends in Dubai and another close friend in Australia so that that was during that period of time, where I started meeting people and I opened up not only that, and then I ended up traveling a lot more got to know myself even more.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:07:43
You’re visiting new places, whether you do it alone or with a friend or a random person, I opened up that that’s what the first transplant did. The second transplant, and stroke. It kind of gave me another phase in life where I appreciated not only the new people, but the people who were always there that I may have taken for granted.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:08:14
Alright, so that’s when I appreciated a lot more my cousins especially. And you get back to your roots at the same time. Like you can imagine I had left the Philippines in 2004 and he came back in 2022. So even like right now, I am living with my parents, although now I’ve started to travel for work again, and I spend 50% of my time in Dubai. But getting back to your roots meeting my old friends like everyone, just three weeks ago, I met a friend of mine from fifth grade. We bumped each other in a mall and we started talking in the past three weeks we hung out like maybe twice.

Bill Gasiamis 1:08:59
I can relate to that. Connecting with your family and friends again and your roots. And yeah, I can relate to that I’ve gone through that similar thing where, you know, I just looked around and saw the people who have always been around and just let them know that I know that they’ve always been around and I appreciate them and I love them and that was really a good thing for me to do like it was also healing and it also made it

Bill Gasiamis 1:09:25
I think it was a good thing to do to let people know what I thought of them you know, because there was a chance I might not be around so it was good to tell them there’s gonna be stroke survivors who have just had a stroke or a few years into stroke or whatever listening to this, you know, what’s the one thing you want to leave them with? What do you want to tell them about the possibilities moving forward?

Ritesh Nandwani 1:09:50
A stroke doesn’t end thinks it. It can give you a new life. Consider it as rebirth. Like, even before my stroke, even in my work, I was always doing something that I did enjoy. But I was always working for someone. It was only after stroke. And after going through all that mess, like you know, I decide now I’m gonna do what I really want to do.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:10:22
It is a struggle, yes, no doubt, but I feel happier. And I appreciate things a lot more now. So like, right now, you know, since stroke, now I have four businesses I’m running. And two of them actually are with my close friends when I was a kid. So we’re actually doing something that we all like. And at the same time, you know, we’re doing something that we appreciate we enjoyed, but it doesn’t feel like work.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:10:50
In order to things I’m beginning to. I mean, now I appreciate relationships, I appreciate even new friends that I’ve met through this whole process. I’m really appreciating that a lot more that, you know, I guess because like the world is so big, and we’re 8 billion people. A lot of times you think that it’s very difficult to make new friends.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:11:21
But if you’re willing to say hi, and throw yourself out there, it’s not as hard as it is. And that was the one thing that I always had difficulty with, like, going through all time was like shit, I feel alone. I don’t know who to call. But then sometimes you say hi to someone, and you just start talking.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:11:41
Eventually, in some cases, not all but some things you actually ended up meeting new friends that you guys have a logical relator. And you’d be surprised how many people don’t really look at your disabilities. A lot of people think, even me like I thought it would really define me. Right? But then, as I met so many people, it’s not like I even met a girl was like, I remember the first time I met her, she me with a cane and said come dance with me.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:12:11
And I’m like, can you see my cane? She goes, you know what? Relax I got it, she’s holding me by the hips. And we’re dancing. She even took the cane and put it away from me holding me by the hips and we’re dancing. And this is the first time I met this person. Like now she’s one of my closest friends. But I never thought that was possible.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:12:31
That you know, people don’t look at you with that. Yeah, that’s one thing. I think I have to say that the stroke will give you a new life, and you can’t let it define you.

Bill Gasiamis 1:12:44
Beautiful mate. On that note, I really appreciate you joining me on the podcast and reaching out and sharing your story. Thank you so much.

Ritesh Nandwani 1:12:52
Thank you as well for giving me this chance.

Bill Gasiamis 1:12:55
Thanks for joining us on today’s episode. If you’re interested in my book about stroke recovery, you can grab a copy on Amazon or by visiting recoveryafterstroke.com/book. To learn more about my guests, including links to their social media, and to download a full transcript of the entire interview head over to recoveryafterstroke.com/episodes. A huge thank you to everyone who has already left the review it means the world to me.

Bill Gasiamis 1:13:24
Reviews are crucial for podcasts to thrive, and your feedback helps others find this valuable content making their stroke recovery journey a little easier. If you haven’t left a review yet, please consider leaving a five-star review and a few words about what the show means to you on iTunes and Spotify. If you’re watching on YouTube, leave a comment below, like the episode and subscribe to the show on the platform of your choice.

Bill Gasiamis 1:13:54
If you are a stroke survivor with a story to share, and now is the perfect time to join me on the show that interviews are unscripted and you do not require any planning. Just be yourself and share your experiences to help others in similar situations. If you have a commercial product that supports stroke survivors in the recovery, you can join me on a sponsored episode of the show. Just visit recoveryafterstroke.com/contact, fill out the form with your category and I’ll get back to you with details on how we can connect via zoom. Thanks again for being here and listening. I truly appreciate you see you on the next episode.

Intro 1:14:34
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Intro 1:15:04
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Intro 1:15:29
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Intro 1:15:53
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