This episode is brought to you by Moodybody.
I've now had the benefit of hindsight where I've been able to compare a spinal cord injury that has caused quadriplegia to depression and anxiety and panic attacks, and I think I can safely say that I have been far more productive with the spinal cord injury than I was with depressions. It's never too late to take a different path or try something different. Like you said, it's okay to be wrong. I think being wrong is awesome. Being wrong is an opportunity to learn. I think we misstep
and it's okay. But I think someone also told me that life is not a dress rehearsal. It's happening right now.
Welcome to the C's the Ya Podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives. They adore,
the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day will bear all the facets of seizing your yea I'm Sarah Davidson or Spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned funentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bar. CZA is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Hello, beautiful people, back in your ears today with an og interview.
It's been so much fun adding yeas of our lives to the mix for something different, and I hope you enjoyed this week's air a few days ago. Don't forget that segment is wholly dedicated to this beautiful yighborhood and meant to be something we create together, implementing your feedback from the servia. So please keep those Yighborhood Watch submissions and feel good recommendations coming so we can keep getting
better and brighter each week to our regular scheduling. Today's guest was actually also a yighborhood nomination from one of our most active contributors, affectionately known as Danosaurus. Dana so generously sent a whole list of suggestions for guests a while back, and this is one that has finally come
to fruition. Dana is the founder of Junior Doctor's Corner and is a doctor herself, working to provide much needed support to junior doctors entering the wild world of medicine and discuss important topics that are often dismissed or taboo. Junior Doctor's Corner also has its very own podcast, so make sure to check that out if there are any other young doctors listening in. Dana's nomination also hails from
the medical world, but is not only a doctor. He is also one of those rare species who has completed degrees in both medicine and law, the holy grail combination that very few around the world dare to tackle. And if that alone weren't enough of a superhuman feat, Dinesh Pelapana is also a quadriplegic and disability advocate, becoming only the second person with quadriplegia to graduate as a doctor in Australia and the first with a spinal cord injury.
Despite a life changing car accident in twenty ten, Denesh now works in the emergency department of Gold Coast University Hospital and has co founded Doctors with Disabilities with two of his colleagues. He tells the story so beautifully himself, so I'll stop myself there, but I hope you find his zest for life and indelible positivity as uplifting as
I did. PS. The audio is a bit dicky at times the joys of zoom strike again, so excuse a few spots where it's a bit muffled, but otherwise I hope you enjoy Denesh, welcome to Seize the A.
Hi. Thanks for having me, sir, Thank.
You so much for jumping on the show. You are one of those very rare but incredible species of people who have done not only law but also medicine, the two degrees that I feel mutually exclusive, but not in your case.
Yeah, I know that there are a couple of us roaming around.
I feel like it's literally a couple in the whole nation. Before we kick off, I start by asking everyone what the most down to earth thing is about them, And I feel like you will know the down to earth things about you. But I have already put you on a very very high pedestal with this whole law med graduate thing. So what's something really relatable about you?
Down to earth things? I love rap music, like called R and B and hip hop nice. When I'm on my way to work, I've got Biggie pumping out of my car. I like pizza and I like shoes as well.
So shoes. They go, oh, they're great. People always struggle. I'm like, no, they're really normal, amazing things.
People.
I think totally, Well, that's that's the thing. We are all just normal people. But I think often people are introduced to you by your title first, or by your story and your achievements and the highlights, and it's very easy, in your amazing list of achievements and the things you've managed to do in the past couple of years, to forget that you are just a human. Like you sound like a superhuman. So I'm glad you just like shoes
and eat pizza. So the first section is your weight TA, which is pretty much the journey from your very early childhood to where you are now. And that's for that exact reason that a lot of people will know you from your title or your achievements or the successes that you've had. And I think a lot of us appear like we woke up knowing what we wanted to do and having the direction that we have if you walked into this chapter of your life. But all of us
started somewhere. Most of us have had periods of feeling lost and having you know, sliding doors moments and forks in the road. And I love going through all of those to kind of trace through and see how wow, what shaped you into the person you are now and particularly with you and there was a big turning point in your life. So let's start with young Dinesh. What were you like as a child. What did you think that you wanted to be? Byron and Brizzy was it?
Well, actually, I was born in Sri Lanka. We moved to Australia on my tenth birthday, so I had ten years growing up in Sri Lanka. I don't think I had any particular thing when I was growing up where I was like, you know, I want to be this. As I was talking to someone just yesterday, I said why do you want to be a doctor or why did you want to be a doctor, and said, I don't know. Since I was seven, I just wanted to
be a doctor. So I was never liked that. But I had all these different ideas and I remember someone really close to me saying that, oh, that's really hard and you may not be able to become that and only the smartest people do this. But then I also had my mom who always made me feel like I could do anything. Whatever crazy idea I had, She's like, yeah, you could probably could you could do that. You can do that. So she's always made me feel very empowered
and capable. And I hope that all kids on this planet will have someone like my mum in their lives. But Sri Lanka is a beautiful place today and it's very different. But when I was growing up, it was going through a civil war and it had a lot of conflict and a lot of suffering. A lot of people died and a lot of people were displaced, and
it was a hard time for people. I remember talking to some parents a couple of years ago and they said, yeah, those days, we used to take different buses to work because if one of us dies, at least there will be the other who makes it home for the kids. So you know, it was that kind of life, and so it was a really difficult place. And I think the turning point for my parents was trying to get me into a school at one point, and the principles
wanted some bribes. Oh my gosh, and my mom sat outside this school for days and days and days and the guy just wouldn't see her or take me in unless you a fee was paid. So we moved here to Australia when I was ten. It's the first time being on a plane. Yeah, I think I threw off the hallway here. But coming to Australia was such an incredible experience because you'd gone from a completely different environment to something that's just you know, the change of seasons.
There was suddenly a summer and it was spring and a winter and whatever else, because you like, it is tropical country, and these big, huge supermarkets with and yeah, all these chocolates, and aisle was full of things and Lamington's, which which is something I remember really well.
Isn't it so funny the things that stand out like that you've kept as such a strong memory even now. The Lamington's sudden.
I just remember the smell of it and the texture of it. It was such a neik thing. But Sydney. We landed in Sydney and we spent only just six months, but I just remember living in this block of apartments and it wasn't it was fairly old. Initially, you know, we didn't really have any furniture and we got it from Vinnie's. I just remember watching Disney cartoons at the neighbors upstairs, and you know, it's really like the first time I'd do all these cool cartoons.
That must have been such a weird time for you, like such culture shock.
Yeah it was, but it was also like it was also very interesting and very cool. It's just a kid discovering all these new things. So that was just this incredible experience. Then my dad got a job in Byron Bay, so we moved to Byron Bay. Most of primary school and high school from memory was in Byron Bay.
Wow.
Yeah, this was in the nineties. It was such a quiet.
The original sleepy Byron It was.
Very sleepy Barron. I had this really great memory. I think I might have been like eleven or twelve, and we used to just ride our bicycles around the town, especially in summer right school holidays is just riding around, eating ice cream and messing around the beach and whatever else. There's just one day where I went to my friend's house and we walked into his house and his mom was sitting on the couch and there was smoke everywhere.
In the Why is that so smoky in here?
She was holding this massive glass contraption and just looking very chilled out. So that's my friend. What's your mom doing? Oh? Yeah, she's smoking a bomb.
What's a bomb?
Yeah? I was like, oh.
Cool, Oh my gosh.
Those days a lot of people partook in bar and Bay and it was nice. It was actually a really beautiful place to grow up. I loved it. But then I don't think I was particularly academic at that time.
That's fascinating. Already, everything up to this point is totally not what you would expect if all you were introduced as is a medical law graduate doctor.
Right, some days when I'm working in the kids, these parents coming with their kids and they say, tell, tell little blah blah blah, how hard you had to work to become a doctor and you were when you were in school, And I'm like, oh, I went to school every day.
But do you know that's really reassuring, because I think there is a bit of a preconception with certain professions, and medicine, of all the professions that you have to decide when you're very young, and you know, be that person that you mentioned who's seven and wants to be a doctor, and then everything in their life is choosing subjects to be a doctor. And I love that you are an example that you don't have to do it
that way. Of course, it's common to do it that way, but so much of this show is about the fact that pathways don't all look the same and they're mostly not conventional. And your first degree wasn't even medicine anyway, so.
Exactly, and does the pathway have to be conventional? You know, like, does life have to be linear? Is that what life is like? We finished high school, we do a degree, we get married, we have kids, we work, we retire, and we die. Like, really, is that all life is? Surely not?
Oh my gosh, you are like the perfect guest for this show right now, because that's the question that this show is about. Is I think for some people that is the extent of what they think life is. They do think of things in a very linear, conventional way.
And I was that person, you know, in my first career, and I shudder to think that I could have closed off so much of what life actually is about by sticking so rigidly to the plan all the time, I'm such a proponent for the nonlinear pathway, and I love that yours has been that way. So how did you first decide on law at QUT? Like why was that your first choice?
Well? Actually I didn't have a particular passion or a purpose, and those two things I think are very very important. I was just roaming around and having fun and grade eleven and twelve, like I actually started grade eleven because we started fresh in Brisbane. When I started did the final two years in school, and initially I was like, Okay, I'm going to put my head down and study hard and get whatever. But then you know, I met friends
and we started partying and whatever else. My mom she used to get the report cards and it'd be like thirty days absent, and she'd be like, what were you doing when I went to work. You were dressed for school? Like yeah, but then I went back to bed.
Oh my gosh again, like you are just smashing through people's perception of what it takes to be a good medical student later in life.
So yeah, whenever parents asked me that question, like yeah, it's work hard, yeah, stay in school.
Yeah. So yeah, why law? Why was that the first choice? I'm not mad.
I had this conversation with my mum. She taught me how to drive, she taught me all these things. She told me about money, she taught me about everything. Really. When I was talking about what I should do with my life, you know, law is really cool, Like why don't you when you try that? So I applied to law and I got into Laura and thinking back, I don't know if my reasons were doing law like they're
probably very superficial. I thought, wow, you know, it'd be cool to be a lawyer, and I hear, yeah, it seemed to do cool things, and I'd love to wear a suit and work in the office. I don't think that. It was like, you know, I loved the law and I loved the way. Yeah, so I didn't really think of it that way. So I was going about my life and over a period of time, though, I started to become depressed. The thing is, now I know about this, but when I think back, I didn't have any insight
into what was happening to me. Yeah, but over a period of time, I started to really feel quite dull. I wasn't listening to it.
Wrap first sign, that's the first sign.
No jeez, that's an Amberlyte.
That is an Amberlte, Dinesh.
Amberlite right there. I should have seen the sign, so you know. But by the way, the music didn't sound as good, and I stopped hanging out with my friends as much, and I loved driving to and I know I wasn't driving my cars March, and just everything seemed a bit dull, even the colors. And I started to get anxious all the time. Then I started to get panic attacked. It's just this debilitating terror. When I was out somewhere, it got so bad to the point where
I was afraid to go outside the house. Then I was just stuck inside the house for weeks and weeks and weeks, sleeping patterns change, I was eating differently. So I think there are three things that I learned out of that. One is I think when we go through mental health challenges, there's a medical component to it. So there's definitely a physiological aspect to it. But also I think that it's a like you said, it's an amberlet in our life that probably says, hey, you're actually living
the way that you should be. Do you need to adjust the sales and do you need to think about life a bit differently, and I think that's really really important. I think depression like there are causes for that as well, like outside causes. And the other thing I realized is that I've now had the benefit of hindsight where I've been able to compare a spinal cord injury that has
caused quadriplegia to depression and anxiety and panic attacks. And I think I can safely say that I have been far more productive with the spinal cord injury than I was with depression. The birds days, I was a prison of my mind and I didn't think I did as much at all. Life like everything was falling. A part I've got my education was suffering, work with suffering, relationships with suffering, and it was all going downhill.
I mean, very few people in the world can, with personal insight, make that comparison and give us an actual answer. But how damning on the impact of mental health. I think because it is so invisible, it is so easy for us. I mean not easier, but it's so straightforward to comprehend the debilitating impact of quadriplegia, paraplegia, any kind
of long term physical affliction. But it's so fascinating that mental health affected you more day to day, and yet you didn't even understand it enough to pick it up yourself until later.
And I think I was talking to a friend maybe last year who also used to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, and they taught me that they recovered from it after a period of time, but they told me that one of their biggest fears these days is for that to come back. Wow, and not my biggest fear, but I always think, oh, man, imagine if I had to go through that again, that would not be fun.
So how did you get to the point where it doesn't recur? Like what pulled you out of it? Was it the life change? Was it realizing perhaps the environmental triggers for that coming on? At what point did you realize that something was more than just the normal spectrum of emotion.
It was a combination of things. So there was a medical side of it, and around that time I was also diagnosed with Celiac disease. I had a couple of medical things to sort out, but it was also readjusting the cell in a big way, changing some of my interpersonal relationships. And once I found medicine, you know, I was watching House, and I decided.
Stop, it was that really what sparked it? Nod because that would be amazing because literally, one of the things I'm going to ask you in a couple of questions is about plural affusion. And the only reason I know what plural affusion is is because of a House. Because I'm such an amazing diagnostician. I'm literally like, oh, that's definitely sarcoidosis because of those things. My medical vocabulary is amazing because of that show. What actually was it for you? What was it?
Like?
Law and medicine are traditionally seen as like different forks in the road, not it's not you know, it's either or it's not both.
And yeah, I mean, so I had that experience with the depression, I really really thought about life. I think I realized that I wanted to do something with people. I wanted to do something hands on. I wanted to do something where I could just go anywhere in the world and I could just use my brains and my hands to make a difference in someone's life, and just one person was enough. Someone made a change in my life, or some or people contributed to making it change in
my life, and it changed my whole world. Yeah, so that that's I think that's a powerful thing that that was one of the reasons why I thought, you know, medicine is a really cool way to do this. I also did this clerkship at a law firm and it was a small firm, and I was just like, what am I doing here? Because like, make sure you build like this.
Six minutes every six minutes.
Yeah, I found it really hard to see a future in that for myself. That's that's how I ended up with the idea of medicine. And once I found that, I was just so energized and I loved this idea and I felt like a new man, you know, And when I turned the corner from that point in my life, I actually remember the very day I drove out of my garage in my car and suddenly the sun was bright and smells.
The birds were singing to.
You, Champagne was raining from the sky.
But do you know that just highlights for me so much exactly what I truly believe about this whole concept of seizing your yea that we do often take a few false starts down different pathways, and you try things on for size, and not one career is going to fit all of us, and it's okay to start something and go, look, this really isn't me, This is some people. This is you know, maybe some people who are similar
to me in some ways. But it's just not right for me, and it's costing me energy and time and like emotional, you know, it's costing me my life of trying to stick and make it work. And I love that you felt empowered enough to try something new, because I think some people think when they've chosen something it's
a forever choice. They're too old or they've invested too much time and it's going to be a waste go back and start something a new and then you're an adult as a student, and you know, people get very bogged down in not wanting to be a beginner again and being scared of the unknown. And I just I love that you have found you know, you found your ya and you weren't afraid to go after it, and then you reaped the benefits from that first moment of turning such a big corner.
Love in life now. But you know you're right, it's never too late. I once met the Delma guy. You know, I do try to stop it I did. I chilled out with him in his intra Lanka. Yeah, so cool. I know. So. A couple of things that really struck with me about him is that they do a whole heap of community work, like it was incredible, but the level of social responsibility is amazing. The second thing is you start Delma until it was in his fifties, and how crazy is that?
It's amazing.
I saw him and you see, like I mean, even the American politicians now are like become presidents in their sixties and seventies.
Totally.
Yeah, I met this like eighty something year old weightlifter, you know, a couple of years early. So it's never too late to take a different path or try something different. And absolutely, like you said, it's okay to be wrong. I think being wrong is awesome. Being wrong is an opportunity to learn. It's an opportunity to go, Hey, this something I could do differently, This is something I could do better, There's something I could do whatever. I think
we miss step and it's okay. But I think someone also told me that life is not a dress rehearsal. It's happening right now.
I love that.
I know it's cool. Right. One of the things that really kept me going after I got this spinal cord injury is that I can say that I live life to the fullest until that point. Like I roamed around Byron Bay on my bike. I asked that girl out in someone. I took that trip with my friends and I partied in Japan. I really lived life. And I took a trip a few weeks before the accident happened. And it's one of the most significant things that I
remember because it was one of my best friends. He caught me up one day and he said, do you want to go to Japan? And I was like, Oh, I don't want to send money or do I want to like spend money? Do I want to know? Like you kind of intellectualize those things. So we just turned up in Japan with no plans, just a bag. We really like had a great time.
I love how discerning you are with your words. You're like, we are, Yeah, I had a great time.
Yeah, we celebrated life.
But that is so wonderful because you know, I think there is like that adage of the tomorrow that you envision and that you take for granted is not guarantee, and that is exactly why it is so important to make decisions like the one that you made. You know, you can always make back money. You can never make back time and opportunities and have chances to relive particular days again. And I bet now you're just so glad that you didn't go. Oh, that's not sensible. I should save the money.
Well, exactly because we went snowboarding and I stood in the snow and I felt the snow on my face. But I didn't know that three weeks later, for another eleven years at least, I wouldn't be standing up in the snow again. Oh my god, So how is that? That's you know, But if I knew, if someone told me, hey, dude, you're going to have a spinal cord injury from a terrible car accident in three or four weeks time, we go. Man, I'm going to Japan, I'm going to freaking Venezuela. I'm
going everywhere. You know, that decision has become so much easier.
And it's suddenly a no brainer. And so it's like, well, why can't you pre empt and live that way always so that you're not missing out on the chance to do it while you have it? Like even lockdown, I think is something everyone just assumed they would be freely moving in the world and so delayed doing things that they wanted to do because they were like, oh, there'll always be time to do it, and then suddenly the world shut You literally never know what's around the corner.
You don't, especially in your case, you could never have known what was going to happen. And I think there is a lot to be said for sparking your own moments of like turning points or sliding doors doors, moments in your life where you voluntarily choose to rip the band aid and make a big, you know, change in your life, which you have already done. And in most people's episodes, this is the end of their story and we move on to the next section. In yours, it's
barely the start. You just had already squeezed in a
lifetime of revelations and learnings and pivots. But the next section is yourn ata, which is the biggest challenges that you've faced along the way, And I think it's the perfect time to sort of move on to the accident, what happened, what you remember, and how it's been recasting your identity and still going after the dream that you had before in a different way, with different challenges, but going on to be incredibly successful nonetheless.
Well, yeah, I mean speaking of sliding doors moments. I went to visit my parents. It was at thirty first of January twenty ten, so a couple of weeks ago. It had been eleven years most most years now, I don't really kind of forget. And then a few days later I was like, oh, thirty first of January, but this year I've had a lot of reason to reflect.
But that Sunday, that weekend, I went to visit. There's family member visiting, and I actually wasn't going to go to my parents' place to see them because I thought I should study and whatever else. But then again I thought, you know what, I'll go and say hi. I went to see them, And then that Sunday I was just like vegging the whole day because that's what I do when I go to mom's place, be cood and like just hanging out shorts and watch TV. Be a slob.
I love it. We call them in the neighborhood sloth Sundays. Like the idea is the anti productivity.
I'm going to use that.
Yeah, i'll send you. There's these big oversized T shirts that say hiberyeating. It's like you're rebuilding your ya in hibernation.
Oh my god, that's so good. I love it so well. I was hibery eating and amazing. I was going to go at lunch, and then I stayed back, and then I was going to go at like three pm, and then I stayed back, and then at seven thirty pm, I decided to leave. And last thing I did standing up until this point was give my mama hug. Oh my god, give my mama hug. I got in the car. So it was a rainy day that day. It was
a little bit wet on the road. And then I was going to visit a friend along the way, but I missed the turn off and then I thought, oh wait, I'll take the next turn off. Then I ended up in this stretched highway and I thought, okay, well I'm going to go and visit this girl.
Of course it was a girl.
Oh my god, there, what's a girl.
It's always a girl, damn it.
Maybe I'll go so high. So it's in this dark stretch of highway. There's been roadworks, there's very little lighting. I remember coming up to this little black slick, but it came up really quick and as soon as I hit it, my car lost control, spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. Then it went up an embankment and it came back down the embankment. The nose of the car hit the road and it started flipping through the air.
I know, it was super violent, like the glass was just exploding and there were things flying around the cabin. And I like to call this my ultimate mindfulness moment, because there was a second there where I thought, Okay, there's nothing I can do about this right now, so I'm going to reframe this into a positive experience. And so I thought, I'm going to think of this like a rollercoaster and enjoy myself. Stop it, I swear to God.
So that's what I did. And so when the latter part of the accident, I was actually just going, WHOA.
I guess, like, what can you do? I mean, you can't change exactly, But you know what's fascinating about you. In the last sort of forty minutes, I've noticed you as you have the most incredible recall, which I think means that in the moments that you're recalling you were so incredibly present and observant of what was going on around you.
Oh, kind of had to be present at that time.
I suppose, of course.
Yeah, so yeah, and then the car finally landed, and then it was dead silent, and then I was like, well, that was quite a ride. And I was wearing this white T shirt and it was now mostly red with blood. I didn't really feel any pain, but I realized that I was paralyzed because I couldn't open the door and my fingers weren't working anymore. And then I couldn't feel my legs move.
I knew you knew straight away.
I knew straight away what had happened, and you straight away that within second my life had changed.
Oh my gosh. Do you think because you had you had medical training at the time, that you were more aware.
Well, yeah, because I met the fireman that came to the scene. I met them for the first time a couple of years ago. Wow. Yeah, that was really cool because they remember. If they say that, one of the reasons they remembered it so well is because as soon as they turned up, I could tell them what my diagnosis was.
Oh my gosh, you know, like the thing that panics me the most, and why I am so fascinated by our emergency services workers, is that I'm not great in time sensitive panic situations. I'm okay in the moment, but in my brain, I'm not okay. Do you remember from the minute it happened to the minute fireman and ambulance
work has got to you? What happened? Like that waiting of knowing that something's wrong and knowing it's time sensitive, but not them not being there yet, like who did you call the ambulance yourself?
Like how do you know? So what happened was there was someone behind me and they pulled over and then they ran up and they were holding my head because my head was all apparently floppy. He didn't have a phone. So another car that happened to go by, so then the fire truck was the first thing to come. But they also hit whatever I hit and they lost control of the truck apparently, oh my gosh, I know, and then cut me out of the car. But I think I was just talking to the guy and was holding
my head I chat but apparently I was. I was a bit distressed by that point, of course, and we're friends now he's a good friend.
That's lovely.
He tried to find me for years, apparently because they wouldn't tell me what happened to me where I was taken, And he said they even got to add out in the newspaper or something like that.
He was trying to find you through the paper. Oh my gosh.
Then in twenty fourteen, I think it was or twenty fifteen, one of those. It was New Year's Eve and it was like ten pm, mom, and I was like cleaning the apartments or medical school. I wasn't partying for some reason. And we found this police report from the accident and it had this guy's phone number on it. So I said, the guy that was accident sames Chris Bailey. He wouldn't
care that I said it. So found Chris's number on the bit of paper and then I send a text to this message going, hey, do you remember pulling over for a guy who had this car accident in twenty ten? And I get this message back and it's like, oh my god, yes I do. I've I've been trying to find you. Can I call you? So Newye's Eve he called me. After we have these chats like oh my god, yeah, trying to find you. I tryed to find what happened to you. We had a chat and it was it
was so good to reconnect. It was like, whoa, this is amazing.
Oh my gosh.
Since then we've been friends. And then the first time we actually met physically was on Australian Story, so they.
I watched that. So when you said Chris Bailey, I was like, of course he was. He was on it and your beautiful mum was on it too.
Yeah. So that scene on the show was actually when I first that was real. It was when I first met.
Oh that's beautiful.
So it's really cool. So now we connect, we talk, we hang out when we can, and it's just as a good guy.
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I think most people around that time in their life have a quarter life crisis where suddenly you're closer to thirty than twenty and like it's a lot going on. You know, the twenties are very tumultuous finding yourself. It's angsty, you.
Know, and.
Let alone literally losing the use of limbs that you actually consciously remember having and that you've built your whole
adult identity having. For you to have known yourself one way and then as an adult have to rebuild your hopes and dreams and relationship with yourself, many people, I think would have not gone on and pushed through to continue their path as a doctor and have pushed through the many more barriers that you have faced since then with a disability attempting to move into medicine, to have then become admitted to the Supreme Court last year as well,
and to have the positive outlook that you have as well. Because in things like this, I have a theory that everything happens for a reason, and it explains most things in the world. When I talk to someone like you, it doesn't work for me anymore suddenly, because I can't say that a tragic accident like that. I don't know what the reason is for that happening, but I'd love to know what you think about luck. And you don't seem to have taken it on as like, oh, I
had such bad luck, Poor me. I don't want to do anything else in my life. You've gone on to help other people and to start doctors with disabilities and to fight for more access for people with disabilities in your industry and beyond. So I imagine that wasn't an easy journey nor a quick journey. How did you rebuild your identity?
So, speaking of identity, I'm a fairly vain guy. I'm just going to work for well, I mean for physical appearance. I spent the time doing my hair and the shoes, and.
Oh the shoes. I did not, yeah, the shoes.
So that identity, that was a very difficult thing to get back. I met a very very young person who had a spinal cord injury and their family said that they didn't look in the mirror for a couple of months.
Wow.
I didn't actually look in the mirror for about probably two years. Wow. Yeah, I didn't know how Like, it's just that's fascinating, but that physical identity, like even clothing and dressing and whatever else, like, it took a long time for me to myself again. It has been extremely challenging. There were days when my mom and I we didn't know where we were going to live. We didn't have any money, we were in a heap of debt, we were alone. Some days. I was sick, critically sick some days.
So there were all these challenges that we had. I guess what, I feel like the luckiest guy on earth.
Shut up.
I feel like me and mom like some days, actually every day life it's so damn good. Yeah, Like I live, I live in the gold Gos, but I look over to my left, I can see the beach and the ocean. I see nature. I go to work and I'm like, yeah, I get to work as a doctor, and I get to work in emergency departments and see people and help people, and we're in this amazing country. I get to got my mom. I've been educated. How lucky a mom. I feel like the luckiest and the journey hasn't been easy.
I also sometimes think that you can't make a sword with putting it into the fire and beating it with a hammer. So I feel like that's what I've experienced, and hopefully I'm a better human for it, and hopefully that I'm stronger for it. And that's honestly how I feel to them. I'm grateful. I am grateful for so many things every day and are consciously I am grateful for things. I think gratitude is really important.
I was just going to say, I think gratitude is the antidote to everything.
Really.
It's such an easy practice to work into your day that people forget in really tough times. But it's impossible to be angry and grateful at the same time. And I remind myself of that all the time.
Well, Sarah, you're telling me that about your trip to a wander in the schools. I went to Shri Lanka after the spileal cord injury, and I saw how other people with spinal cord injury live there and their lifespans are significantly shorter than mine. Their opportunities are nothing like the ones I have. The support structures are nothing like what I have. So how can I not be grateful for my life? How can I not be thankful? Like it'd be dishonoring them? At the very least. I'm superlated.
I think it's such a valuable lesson and insight into how I mean, the adversity that you have faced even before the accident is still quite a lot of things to have had to build resilience for and have strength
to get through and to stay directed and motivated. But then add the complete loss of your ability to walk, and when you had been really outdoorsy and you did have a whole identity based around that, it's just, I mean, it's extraordinary, but it's a I think there's so many practical things that we can take away from that in any kind of adversity, the way to just get your head right around it, Gratitude being a really big thing. But what else helped you and drove you to move
back into medicine and graduate from med school. I think you were the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland and the second person with quadriplegia to graduate as a doctor in Australia ever first with a spinal cord injury. But then found it tough to get a job and to fight for your place and have had people ask what the patient's reactions are and I know there was a time where you graduated and then didn't were the only one in your cohort who didn't have a job for
a little while. So what helped you get through those darker times where it wasn't You didn't have the perspective that you do now, and the things to be grateful for were more obscured.
Perhaps, Well, the I think the hardest time was actually the period after this final cord injury, immediately after this final court injury. That's when it was just like a fight to make it through the next day and the next day and the next day. There were setbacks, there were complications, there were all sorts of things for that was really the hardest time. But when I got to that point where i'd finished at school or when I was getting through school, like we'd already been through like
so many challenges, sometimes life threatening sometimes otherwise. So by that point I'm like, man, I'm just going to keep fighting.
Yeah, I can do anything now, Like.
Oh, you don't give me a job, well, we'll see that. That just having gone through the hard times before really helped. I also had some amazing people around me, just incredible people, And I think that's the other thing that you need to I have. I have a friend and I love them dearly. And they're always busy, always a lawyer. He's also a lawyer.
Oh a surprise, surprise.
But every time I doesn't pick up the phone, and it's sort of like, I'm too busy for that. I'm to be for that. Yeah, I barely see them. So I think that it's important to cherish the people around you. And two, if people fight for you, you need to fight for them as well. So there have been a lot of people around me that made a huge impact. And one person I remember, she came to the hospital when I had the accident and she hung up the
poem Invictus by my bedside. Have you ever read them? Yeah, meaning invincible, right, and it talks about the unconn Krugel's soul.
That's you.
It's just small acts like that. I mean, I'm talking about it too, eleven years later.
And it's still Yeah, is imprinted.
It's still imprinted in my mind. So things like that. Late last year, I was I had the huge honor of giving the National Museum an object of significance to me, which is displayed at the National Museum camera at the moment, and what I gave them was one of my scrubtops, because scrubtop signifies who I am, and then on that scrubtop past signatures of a bunch of people that have
played a part in this journey. The lecturers that taught me, the friends that were there for me, so all these people that have played a part in this journey, and it was such a cool thing to be able to honor them in that way, because you know, I am who I am because of them, and we also need to make sure that we're there for people as wrong totally.
Yeah, I think you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with, and you have to choose them wisely. But also it takes a village, everything does. There's no one I've had on the show or who I've ever spoken to, really, even though their achievements might outwardly seem individual, no one's really ever gotten there without a huge army of people who have helped get them there,
even in small contributions along the way. But everyone remembers the ten or twelve people who have done particular things or had particular conversations with you that are pivotal, and that then you've had the chance to pass that on to other people as well. You've probably been one of the five or twelve in someone else's life. And I think we're so interconnected, and people forget that. You sometimes take it on yourself that you have to get there alone, and no one does.
No one does, I know, and that's so important, Like that's really important. And I think giving, you know, like we're we're so that's one of the other tricks to life, I reckon, because we're so inward looking sometimes like I'm feeling this way, I need to do this for myself, But actually I think life is about looking outwards and seeing what we can give. Giving is such a joyous thing.
It's fulfilling and it's an awesome thing. So I think being giving is also really important, so giving to other people around you even really be happy with all the money that you accumulent at the end of the day when you have that last second on this planet one day, you know, look, okay, I've got seven million dollars and that's a great thing. I need to think, Wow, you know, I've connected with so many people and that may last
a long time. I think feel free, dnswer is we just we'll be happy about the things that we gave.
My mum always said, Mum and I always have a laugh to each other, like you can't take it with you, so like you might as well enjoy it widely and with the people you love now, Like no one it doesn't matter how selfish people are, like at the end of the day on their deathbed that it doesn't it But I can't do anything with that money. It doesn't come with you anywhere. So I think that's something that probably we all need to reflect on a little bit more. Is like, at the end of the day, you're never
going to regret. I don't think anyone will get there and go I wish I gave less. I wish I did less nice things person And it's funny also that you said happiness. We talked a little bit at the start about you know, the difference between happiness and success and how they're very conflated, and of course they're related,
but I don't think they're necessarily the same thing. And I think Hollywood's a perfect example that money and things and fame and celebrity and outward success doesn't equal happiness in and of itself. So what's your relationship to success? You have a lot of metrics. You have an Order of Australia Queensland Australian of the Year this year. Congratulations. But for you, what are your metrics of measuring success?
Yeah, I mean those things. I think. I'm so grateful to our community. Firstly, you know, to my friends, family and loved ones, from being there for me to this journey and getting here. Most of all my mothership.
She's such a legend. She's like in the background.
However, yeah, she's in the background. I don't think she realized he's running off. So I'm really thankful. And you know, those milestones are hopefully reflect the importance of giving someone a chance in our society and not saying that Okay, this person has a spinal cord injury or this person's this,
or that anyone can make anything in our country. Absolutely, But for me, it also holds me at a higher standard to myself and I think, you know, this just means that I need to keep doing what I'm doing and to keep doing more. But success is really like what I can give back to society. That that's success,
and that's happiness to me. You know, like students sometimes reach out if just as an example, I think it's important to give time to people like that and Okay, let's catch off for a coffee and let's talk about a career and what you want to do with it, and I'll help you in whatever way I can. So it's stuff like that, and it's that interconnectedness and community that's what gets us through these times like pandemics and things. Right totally, Yeah, what are you going to do with
your ten million bucks? Sitting at.
Well, you with your ten million bucks or two million? I think it was the grant that you've got. Tell
us about some of the incredible things you're doing. I heard you're doing thought controlled rehab and paving the way for other people who might experienced final cord injuries, but also the amazing advocacy that you've been doing for other people with disabilities, because I think there's a lot of not misunderstanding, but I think still quite a lot of discrimination against people for their physical abilities.
Yeah, and it's not just you know, we see it from education, employment, healthcare, community access. It's really widespread. Some of the disparities people living rurally, you know, for them. It's also even more During COVID nineteen, we saw some countries that were talking about taking a different approach with life saving treatments. If you're a person with disability, you know, we see all that stuff. It's been really a confronting thing.
But of late, in particular, I've had the opportunity to be a witness for the Disability Royal Commission in some roundtables with the federal government and un COVID nineteen and really speak out about some of the issues that are affecting people with disability and hopefully that's going to make a positive impact because there is stuff that we need to do not just here but around the world with
the spinal cord injury research that's really exciting. So today I was this afternoon, I was at our research lab and we are really i think, starting to uncover just the surface of how the brain and spinal cord works with spinal cords. So around the world we've seen some really amazing work done around thought controlled rehabilitation and drug therapy and electrical stimulations that are actually restored function some function at least in people that have been paralyzed for
years and years and years. Wow, this is the kind of stuff that where we got a ground for to build on. And again this has been a journey. That's speaking of sliding doors. Right. So a few years ago I was in my elevator on my floor and this Italian dude gets into the elevator lived a couple of doors down from me in my partment building, and we start talking. If this dude gets in and he talks in his Italian accident, we start chanting in terms that
he's a scientist at Griffith. So me and he talk and over time we start talking about spinal cord injury. And I'm like, man, you know, there's all this cool stuff happening in the US and Switzerland. And he's like, oh, you know, I wonder if we can start doing some of these things here. So then there was equipment that we needed, the headset that actually does the thought control read your brain. So I was at a colleague's office
and I started talking to him about this stuff. I said, oh, yeah, we just need to find a few bits equipment, including one of these headsets. I was like, oh, dude, I've got one right here, and he opened the draw yeah, and he pulls out I haven't got one, but I have two. So we found all this equipment and we started fiddling around and realized, oh my god, we can actually build on what they're doing there. So we started working on it. We had proof of concept and we
applied for a grant. We got the grant. Now we've got the two million dollars funding in the lab doing the thing.
That's amazing.
One day I can do this podcast again with you, but I'll be saying stop it.
I just got those sumps. Oh my gosh, that would be incredible.
That's the dream.
Well, i'll hold you to that, hold me to it. Well, there's one more section and just a few questions. It's my favorite section, and I'm sorry everyone listening. I know I always run this so that there's not much time left for it because I just get so distracted by the story because it's so fascinating. I have one more question, though, before we move on, which is just about how you
found particularly as an adult. I think as a child you might not see the nuances or the subtleties of people's behavior changing, But when you did start to rebuild friendships and relationships, I imagine a lot of people wouldn't have known how to act around you, and how to be and how to support you best, how to not be weird, and then sometimes by trying not to be weird, that'd be even weirder, only out of care and compassion.
But I think, you know, like a lot of the I said before that there's a lot of discrimination, I didn't actually mean that. I think there's just a lot of in access because of miss understanding or because of not thinking as empathetically because we don't have that same experience. And I think it's the same in being around people and trying to support them through the experience because you just don't know what they're going through and you can't empathize. Really,
how was that for you? And is there anything that you wish that you could tell people not to do or not to say that you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but is there anything that triggers you or that like people do all the time that you're just you just wish that you could just say, don't do that, man, like that is anaty.
Until you quit. A couple of things ones funny. When I was in the hospital straight after this happened, one of my good friends, so she came to the hospital and she's like, oh, you know, I've stuffed my knee you know, I won't be able to walk for like two weeks. I was like, oh, it was so funny. But she's like got the purest heart and was like, I think she just wanted She was just talking to me becase we didn't even think of it, So that was really fun.
I can imagine you're just being like, oh.
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, ah, cool man.
I also reflect on the fact that I have some dear close friends now who have only known me after that accident. Yeah, that's like a weird thing, and that's also cool.
That is cool. So the very last section is your plata. And I don't know, as an admitted lawyer slash doctor, I don't know how you would have time to do anything else. But I think one of the most important things when you do love your job is that you do something outside your job that's completely unrelated to productivity to achieving. I mean, particularly being a doctor. Achieving and productivity and using your brain is like and learning and
continually self bettering is like hardwired into your brain. But plata is what do you do to forget what time it is? What do you allow yourself to do that is purely for joy. Mine is gardening, even though I'm terrible at it and like crime books or war movies like nothing to do with what I do, but it's the stuff that makes my brain switch off. So what are those for you?
Well, I'm going to tell you something that might maybe it's an unexpected answer, but I think it's important to find joy in what you do every day as well. So I find joy in medicine and going to work and whatever else. So that's super important for me. Anyway. I like to have fun no matter what I'm doing. But if we're talking about things outside, I suppose professional activities. Music like that rap yep, I love the rap. I love the rap on my movies. I like it's like
being outside, like in the sun. I might I think I'm addicted to it now because I spent so much time in a dark place, not knowing whether it's day or night, injury and not know when I'll be able to be outside. My room is just like I never closed the b lines. It's just glass order ceiling and I can see outside. So I just love chilling outside, like to see they're having a coffee or eating somewhere. And I like doing fun things like I went, I
went paramotoring once. You know, I've been in a rally car, I've been what else, I've been on a pallet. I've been a glider, like a you know, it's not like a hang glider, but a glider that's inclodes. I like doing stuff like that amazing, So that's pretty fun. Just anything fun, really like doing fun things.
Do you know what's weird? How many people you would ask, including my former self, what do you do for fun? And they kind of look at you like what, like what what do you mean for fun?
Like what?
What's fun? And that's why it's called playta because it's like a call out to that juvenile in a child that people let die. And it's like, no, you're not. I mean you have to grow up in some areas, but keep the inner child alone.
Yeah, totally.
Second last question, what are three interesting things about you that don't normally come up in conversation?
So? I love cars. I love cars and most things with engines, Like I'm just I really love cars and I always have so cars, and I think I don't I think my middle name is actually a last name. So yeah, a lot of people ask me what the middle name is, but it's I think it's more like iving to last names. I think my last name is actually Plopano, so from my understanding, and this might be wrong.
In Sri Lankan history, I think the king sort of allowed some families to govern over certain parts of the country and they literally have these houses that they governed out of. One of these houses. And there's a village called Palapana now, which is where I'm from. That's where my family has that house. So Palapano was. Yeah, it's got a little bit of his through to it.
It's amazing.
The third one, okay, I really also like chocolate.
Favorite chocolate bar? What would you take on a desert island.
It's a significant weakness for me, so it's not really a chocolate bar. But I like Natella like just by the spoon.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
And there's a really awesome chocolate bar. I think it's called Whittikers or Whitman's.
But it's the Coconut Oh, the slab, the mini gold Oh, yes, so good, it's dangerous. Amazing. Very last question, since I love quote so much, what's your favorite quote?
Yeah? I have many that I love, but I think the biggest one that probably encompasses a lot of things that we've talked about tonight, and it also encompasses the reason why I do medicine is that it's something It's a quote that my mom loves and I can't remember where it comes from, and it is that by helping one person, you may not change the world, but you'll change the world for them.
That's beautiful. I think that's really important, so important. Oh my gosh, you are absolutely extraordinary. Thank you so much for your time and wisdom, and I just can't wait to see what you do next with this new technology and research. And I hope we keep in touch.
Yeah, for sure.
What an incredible display of gratitude and strength in the face of a big fat naty AA. I just found this story so heartwarming, and Danesh was just such a delightful person to chat too. If you enjoyed the episode, please do take a moment to share it so we can keep spreading the YAY and subscribe or drop us a review if you haven't already. It helps us keep growing and securing you wonderful guests. I hope you're having an amazing week and are seizing your ya