“My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically.” -Stephen Hawking
Paulami Patel, a 29-year-old young woman will fill your heart with sympathy when you initially see her. However, without her right hand, and with 45 plus surgeries, her radiant smile will put your sympathy to shame and reinforce your belief in the fact that
“Disability is truly more about the mindset”
Overcoming her handicap, she’s a successful entrepreneur and a motivation to every person who surrenders to their limitations and gives up when things get into a vicious circle.
Painful Journey of Paulami
In the year 2001, a 12-year-old Paulami Patel, after her fifth standard semester exams had gone to her paternal uncle’s home in Hyderabad to spend summer vacations with her cousins. She along with her cousin decided to do a role-play with her cousin. They both pretended to fish on the balcony of the second floor of their home. Paulami, while role-playing, attached a metal utensil with her iron rod that would act as a hook, and flung it out of the balcony, pretending it to be the sea. Accidently the rod slipped out of her hand and tangled itself in the low-hanging electric wires. Paulami reached out for the rod… shockingly, to discover that afterward, it was a live wire that struck her with an 11,000 volts electric current!
Paulami yelled in pain and blacked out. The power went off, and her bruised body was thrown back. Her relatives found her severely bleeding, burned with torn clothes, and rushed her to Apollo hospital, Hyderabad. Paulami had sustained 75-80% burns. After staying for a month in Hyderabad hospital, she was taken to Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai via Air Ambulance. In 8 months, she switched four hospital beds for treatment. As there was no skin or muscle left, so to save her left hand and foot, the doctors cut open her abdomen and attached her left hand to it for 2 months in order to transfer flesh to her left hand and make it operable.
“The doctors thought that it was a miracle I survived. Because in most cases, the patient dies on the spot. The current had travelled through my right hand and left through my left foot. While my right hand was severely damaged, my left foot had no skin, muscles or tissues left. I lay naked for a week in the burns ward. When the gangrene in my right hand had begun to spread, doctors were flown in from Mumbai for a second and third opinion. Within a week from the day of admission to the hospital, my right hand was amputated,” says Paulami.
Everlasting Optimistic Attitude Of Paulami
To bring sensation back in her hand, a 12-hour surgery was conducted to cut open her calves and transplanted two 12-inch sensory nerves to her left hand but she still finds it difficult to close a button, tie her hair or pick a pin. So, too many corrective and re-corrective surgeries were performed on her. Instead of being the victim of self-pity, she took it as a challenge to give her life a second shot. To summarize, her everlasting optimistic attitude reimbursed the disorder, she was thrust with.
Witnessing her unconquerable spirit, her school teachers and her friends helped her by supplying notes to the hospital. Her class teachers promoted her with her batch that year. The very same year, she received her prosthetic arm. Instead of thinking about the struggles, she focused on taking small steps like writing, zipping her bag, wearing her clothes, and locking a door. Slowly she mastered all of them. She rewrote ‘Matilda’ with her prosthetic arm, SUCCESSFULLY!
“My father came up with a simple rule. He said none of them could speak to me. The only way anyone was allowed to see me is if they told me a joke and I told one in return. And I cannot tell you how that helped me recover. Lying in that 4×4 room, 24×7, I would look forward to meeting people and sharing jokes,” says Paulami.
From the day, she zipped her own bag, to the day she wore clothes on her own, the first time she locked a door or wrote all her examination papers by herself – everything was a celebration. She completed her BCOM, got an MBA from NMIMS and lived by herself for two years – that’s when she knew that she was enough; that her disability was just a part of her life, not what defined it! At first, she tried to hide behind long sleeves, dupattas and never wore shorts because she has scars all over her legs, but over time, she let it all go because, she became proud of her flaws and scars as they made her who she is today – fearless and positive.
Leading Successful Business Women Paulami Patel Jotwani
Currently, she runs her family business which deals with heavy machinery. She married her childhood sweetheart, Sundeep Jotwani after thirteen years of being known to each other through a mutual friend. They met just after school and hit it off as best friends. According to her, he is the sweetest guy, she knows. Even in the initial days, he never asked her anything about her accident upfront. Whatever, he knew was through her friends. She never felt embarrassed or awkward in taking help from him. He has been her rock-solid support through and through.
In her final message, this beautiful and incredible woman says, “I have seen both sides of life–as an able-bodied person and a person overcoming disability. All I want to say is that this is all a part of life. Don’t shut yourself down, don’t hold back. There is so much more to life and a whole world left to conquer. So, what if I don’t have a hand, I will still live my best life.”
Doesn’t her story make you want to celebrate the little joys of life and make the most of each day? And while her life is something each of us can learn a lot more from, what is even more heartwarming about her story is the relentless support her parents gave her through and through.
“The difference between those who fail and those who succeed is largely perseverance. So, never quit.”