Samina Ali, PIECES YOU'LL NEVER GET BACK: A Memoir of Unlikely Survival

Summary

Totally Booked with Zibby
Episode: Samina Ali, PIECES YOU'LL NEVER GET BACK: A Memoir of Unlikely Survival
Release Date: March 17, 2025

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Introduction to Samina Ali and Her Work

In this episode of Totally Booked with Zibby, host Zibby Owens welcomes Samina Ali, the author of PIECES YOU'LL NEVER GET BACK: A Memoir of Unlikely Survival. Samina is also known for her acclaimed novel, Madras on Rainy Days, which has earned prestigious awards such as the French Pre Premier Roman Etranger Award and was a finalist for the PEN Hemingway Award in Fiction. Additionally, Samina is recognized as a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award and has gained widespread attention through her TEDx talk on the Quran and the Hijab, which has amassed over 8 million views.

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Samina Ali’s Harrowing Experience During Childbirth

Timestamp: [03:15]

Samina Ali recounts a life-altering experience she endured during the birth of her son, Ishmael, at the age of 29. Despite being considered low-risk due to her health and the top-tier care at UCSF Stanford Hospital, Samina experienced severe complications that were initially dismissed by medical professionals.

Key Points:

• Early Warning Signs Ignored: Samina persistently voiced concerns about her unusual headaches and chest pain during pregnancy, which were repeatedly downplayed by her doctors.
• Critical Delivery Complications: During labor, her symptoms escalated, leading to a grand mal seizure immediately after delivering her son. An MRI revealed a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage, multiple organ failures, and a heart attack, which were initially unnoticed.

Notable Quotes:

• "I kept saying, I think there's something wrong because I'm feeling more pain in my head and in my chest than I am down there." [03:15]
• "She pretty much thought I would be a vegetable." [06:11]

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Impact on Family and Immediate Aftermath

Timestamp: [06:11] – [07:15]

The sudden turn of events left Samina in a critical condition, causing immense distress for her family. Her husband, Scott, was faced with the terrifying possibility of losing both his wife and son simultaneously, a realization that was only fully understood years later.

Key Points:

• Hospital Mismanagement: Samina remained unconscious and unaware of the severity of her condition, while her newborn son, Ishmael, was placed in the neuro ICU and endured a traumatic week in shock, frequently shifting between the ICU and recovery rooms.
• Emotional Toll on the Family: The family grappled with the fear of losing Samina and Ishmael, compounded by the lack of transparency and communication from the medical staff.

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Healing and Recovery Journey

Timestamp: [07:36] – [19:26]

Samina delves into her long and arduous journey of healing and recovery, both physically and mentally, after the traumatic childbirth experience.

Key Points:

• Understanding Postpartum Complications: Samina emphasizes the importance of recognizing and advocating for oneself in the medical space, highlighting the dangers of preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome.
• Buddhist Concept of Bardo: She introduces the concept of Bardo, viewing life’s challenges as a series of smaller "deaths" that lead to new beginnings, aiding her in navigating her trauma and loss.
• Writing as Therapy: Despite severe brain damage and moments of aphasia, Samina found solace and healing through writing her memoir, a process that required immense perseverance given her physical limitations.
• Neurological Recovery: After three and a half years, Samina achieved remarkable neurological recovery, leading her neurologist to commend her resilience and suggest she document her story.

Notable Quotes:

• "Recovery is repetitive. Recovery is excruciating. It really is a time in your life when you have to make the decision to recover over and over and over again." [16:46]
• "We're resilient and we're strong and we can make it through and, you know, to trust." [23:20]
• "The connections that we all have as humans... are the way that we are all bound to one another." [25:11]

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Themes of Hope, Resilience, and Advocacy

Timestamp: [19:26] – [27:04]

Samina shares the core messages of her memoir, focusing on hope, resilience, and the importance of self-advocacy in healthcare.

Key Points:

• Hope and Resilience: Her story is not portrayed as purely tragic but as a miraculous tale of endurance and the human spirit’s capacity to overcome darkness.
• Advocacy in Medical Settings: Samina urges women to advocate for themselves, especially when experiencing symptoms that are often dismissed, to prevent medical oversights.
• Interconnectedness and Faith: She discusses the interconnectedness of all humans on a cellular level and the role of faith in bridging divides between different religions and cultures.

Notable Quotes:

• "This isn't a tragic story. I think it's a miraculous story that gives us hope." [23:03]
• "We need to... learn to advocate for ourselves." [09:34]
• "Faith is one of the important themes of the book. And I talk about Islam, but I also talk about how Islam is connected to other religions." [25:11]

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Personal Reflections and Family Impact

Timestamp: [22:50] – [23:20]

Zibby Owens inquires about the impact of Samina's experience on her family, particularly her children.

Key Points:

• Children’s Reactions: Samina’s son, now 25, and daughter, 15, have yet to read her memoir. She anticipates varied responses based on their ages and understanding.
• Ongoing Emotional Challenges: The loss of early memories and the irreversible changes have left a lasting emotional impact, contributing to persistent sadness and grief.

Notable Quotes:

• "I get very sad about it." [10:28]
• "We all lose things in life... my story just happens to be a little bit more exaggerated and a little bit more permanent." [12:34]

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Timestamp: [27:04] – [27:25]

Zibby Owens commends Samina for her inspirational journey and the profound impact of her book. Samina expresses gratitude for the opportunity to share her story, aiming to provide hope and resilience to others facing dark times.

Notable Quotes:

• "You're so welcome." [27:23]
• "This story gives us hope." [23:03]

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Key Takeaways

1. Advocacy in Healthcare: Samina emphasizes the critical need for patients, especially women, to advocate for their health and persistently communicate their concerns to medical professionals.

2. Resilience and Hope: Her memoir serves as a testament to human resilience, illustrating that even in the face of life-threatening adversity, hope and determination can lead to recovery and personal growth.

3. Interconnectedness and Faith: The narrative underscores the interconnectedness of humanity and the unifying power of faith across different religions, promoting unity and understanding.

4. Healing Through Storytelling: Writing her memoir was a pivotal part of Samina’s healing process, highlighting the therapeutic power of storytelling in overcoming trauma.

Samina Ali’s PIECES YOU'LL NEVER GET BACK: A Memoir of Unlikely Survival offers an intimate and powerful exploration of survival, loss, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Through her honest and heartfelt storytelling, Samina provides valuable insights and inspiration for anyone navigating their own dark times.

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This summary captures the essence of the conversation between Zibby Owens and Samina Ali, highlighting the key moments and messages conveyed throughout the episode. For a deeper understanding and personal reflections, listening to the full episode is recommended.

Transcript

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[Zibby Owens]

Hi, this is Zibby Owens and you're.

[Samina Ali]

Listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books.

[Zibby Owens]

In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know, get insider insights and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram. Ibioens Samina Ali is the author of Pieces yous'll Never Get A Memoir of Unlikely Survival. Samina is also the author of Madras on Rainy Days, which won the French Pre Premier Roman Etranger Award and was a finalist for the PEN Hemingway Award in Fiction. She is also a recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award. She's a public speaker and her TEDx talk, what the Quran really says about the Hijab currently has over 8 million views.

[Samina Ali]

Her writing has been featured in Various.

[Zibby Owens]

Outlets, from national NPR to the Economist. Welcome, Samina. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Siby to talk about pieces you'll never get. A memoir of unlikely survival. Congratulations.

[Samina Ali]

Thank you. And thank you for having me on.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, it's my pleasure. Your story is so powerful. I mean, after reading it, I was just like, it was a grip your heart, wow, like, kind of story. I just. I cannot believe how much you've gone through. I am so impressed you wrote it as a book. I love how you did it with these super short chapters that are sometimes only a paragraph at length to sort of mirror your mind and all of that. And, oh, my gosh. So tell everybody what happened to you and how you turned it into a book. But basically, what happened.

[Samina Ali]

So I was 29 when I delivered my son, Ishmael. And at the time, because I was 29 and because I was very healthy and I didn't have any, you know, health issues at all, I was not considered high risk. And I want to emphasize that even though I was born in India, I live in San Francisco. So I was at one of the best hospitals in the nation up here at UCSF Stanford Hospital for my care. But very early on in my pregnancy, I just kept thinking that there was something wrong. And I kept bugging the doctors, and the doctors kept assuring me, there's nothing wrong. You're young, you're healthy. Ignore it. And by the time it got to the ninth month, I think they were kind of sick of me saying that there was something wrong. And during labor is when things just went crazy. All of the complications suddenly arose. And during delivery, I was complaining of chest pain. I was complaining of this debilitating headache that was worse than the physical pain of giving birth, which, as you know, the physical pain of giving birth is immense. It's intolerable. And I kept saying, I think there's something wrong because I'm feeling more pain in my head and in my chest than I am down there, and something's wrong. But the OB GYN who was on call didn't take it seriously. He kept dismissing me for the chest pain. He gave me Alka Seltzer. And then when I kept complaining of my head pain, they gave me nitric oxide, you know, the gas that you put over your face so that it numbs. It takes. It kind of takes the edge off delivery. But 20 minutes after I delivered my son, and thank God it was 20 minutes, I had what is called a grand mal seizure, which is the worst seizure that you can Have. And it cut off oxygen to my brain for 30 seconds. At that point, they thought maybe there is something wrong. And then they started to investigate. And that's when they did an MRI of the brain and they found that I had massive hemorrhaging. I had a subarachnoid hemorrhage. My brain was swelling. I had multiple organ failures, and my blood stopped clotting. I had liver failure, I had kidney failure, I had pulmonary edema. And the chest pain that I was complaining to the doctors about during delivery in which they'd given me Alka Seltzer for, turned out to be a heart attack. So at that point, they told my parents and my husband at the time, my. My son's father, that if she's lucky, she'll just die. Yeah. Because if she's not lucky, then one of you is going to have to decide who's going to be caring for her long term because she's, you know, they. They pretty much thought I would be a vegetable.

[Zibby Owens]

I cannot believe. I can't believe it. And you wrote that your son was also sick and turning blue and his Apgar score was so low because nobody knew you had preeclampsia. And that Scott, all of a sudden was like, I might lose my wife and my son at the same time. And you didn't even know any of this until years later?

[Samina Ali]

I didn't know any of it. I was in a coma and I was in the near icu. And he was, you know, going from the nick ICU where they placed Ishmael up to the neuro icu. So he was going back and forth and back and forth. And the doctors actually finally just gave him the recovery room on the delivery ward, which should have been mine, and said, stay there. And he stayed there for that week, going up and down and up and down. Yeah, it was. He was in shock. It was a very traumatic time for everyone. And you're right, I. I was the one who didn't know what was happening. I didn't understand.

[Zibby Owens]

And in the book you say, you know, was I ignored because I am brown? Was that it? Why was I not taken seriously by this, you know, Australian resident or whatever? Of course, there were quickly threats of lawsuits and, you know, the hospital realizing their mistakes. How do you feel about all that now?

[Samina Ali]

You know, sippy? It's healing is a very strange and lengthy process, and everyone goes through that process differently. And, you know, one of the concepts of Buddhism that I talk about in the book is Bardo. And Bardo is that A concept of death. And often when we think of death in the Western world, we think of, you know, the end of life. It's. It's that big thing that we have to all endure at the end of our life. But Bardo is really the kind of smaller deaths that each of us endure throughout life. So getting a divorce, losing a job, you know, having being diagnosed with something like cancer, and, you know, anything that kind of makes you feel like the rug has been pulled out from under your feet and your life is different, your life isn't going to go back to the way it used to be. That. That sense of an ending is, Bardo. It's a sense of those little deaths and then the new beginnings. And I had many, many moments where I had to keep beginning again and beginning again and beginning again. And for me, it's. I'm not looking to sue the hospital or anything like that, but what I am hoping to do is let other women be aware of, you know, help syndrome and preeclampsia. It's. It is not only the most deadly complication of pregnancy, but it's also the most common complication of pregnancy. And the fact that so many women don't know about it, and the fact that so many women are dismissed when they go into the doctors, we really have to begin to learn to advocate for ourselves. And so that's one of the things. One of my hopes with this book. I have many different hopes, but that's.

[Zibby Owens]

One of my hopes. Well, when you recalled your appointments and how there was always an answer to something like, why am I itching this way? And why is this happening? And it turned out you were right. And you're like, my husband and I, two creative writing people who have no medical training, figured this out. Why did nobody else?

[Samina Ali]

1999. So this is pre Google. So we figured it out based on that. This book that was called what to expect when you're expecting. And it was like in the very end, Very, very end, like in the appendix. And we were like, wait, these kind of sound like the symptoms I'm having. So, yeah, and even then we brought in the book, we showed it to them, and even then I was dismissed. And, yeah, I do think that, yeah, gender definitely plays a part of it. Race definitely plays a part of it. It's just. It's really unfortunate.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, my gosh. And so it didn't, of course, end in the hospital. You had a very long recovery where you have to put your brain back together again that you still have so many memories that will not come back that you liken to seeing pictures of yourself as a baby when you know it's you and people tell you it's you, but yet you have no memory of it. It doesn't come back. What does that feel like now? And do you ever just get angry about it?

[Samina Ali]

I get very sad. I get very sad about it. I had a. When I spoke earlier about how there are different seasons of grief and different moments when things come back after I had my daughter, for instance, 10 years later, and I wanted to be there for her during those early months because I couldn't be there for my son. That was a. There was a lot of grief in those days because on the one hand, I was overjoyed to be caring for this newborn and to have the opportunity to do it, because I didn't before. But on the other hand, my presence in her life made me so aware of my lack that I wasn't there for my son, that I couldn't be there for my son. So it's the absence of many things in my life do continue to create sadness. I have two brothers and, you know, sometimes when we get together, we'll talk about things from our childhood. And I just, I don't say, I don't really remember that. I, I can't really remember the three of us doing that. I just play along and I laugh because it makes people uncomfortable and I. And it makes me uncomfortable and it's, you know, those are the things that I've lost, you know, and that's why it's. The title is apropos, you know, the pieces you'll never get back. But I, you know, it's. We all lose things in life. You know, we, we grow, we develop, we mature, we change. And, you know, mine just happens to be a little bit more exaggerated and a little bit more permanent.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, my gosh.

[Samina Ali]

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[Samina Ali]

Yeah.

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[Zibby Owens]

And what was that recovery like? I know you wrote a whole book about about it, but, you know, to sum it up in a couple sentences.

[Samina Ali]

So recovery is unglamorous. Recovery is repetitive. Recovery is excruciating. It really is a time in your life when you have to make the decision to recover over and over and over again. And I didn't talk too much about that in the book at the very end about the recovery process just because it is so repetitive. It is so. I mean, yeah, you make the same steps over and over again. How many scenes can I have showing that? Or, you know, you write a book over and over, the same sentences over and over again. And it's just a repetitive, unglamorous, tedious, really dark space to be in. And you have to find it inside of yourself to keep moving forward and to keep moving on. And remember, I was doing this while I was supposed to be caring for a newborn. So on the one hand, you know, early in the process, I saw him as a competitor to my recovery because my mom had stayed back. She didn't return to Minneapolis. She just stayed to help care for me. And anytime she cared for him, it felt to me like, wait, you're my mom, you should be caring for me. And so I was in that place where I was in the animal reptilian part of the brain, you know, where I was just in survival mode. And it took a long time. It took a long time for me to get to that place where I could. My body was no longer in recovery, my organs were functioning again and things were back up and running and I didn't have to be in survival mode. And I could look at my son and I could start taking care of my Son. But it was a very, very long road. And I want to emphasize that, you know, my neurologist says that in brain damage, especially with something as severe as mine, there is no arrival point, there is no recovery. So I will still have moments of aphasia. I will still continue to have moments where I lack my short term memory. Different things will continue to pop up.

[Zibby Owens]

And yet, despite all of this, you've written a beautiful book which many of us without brain injury struggle to do. How did you do that? On top of everything? When were you doing this? How were you doing this?

[Samina Ali]

Oh, my God. So when I went to my final neurological follow up exam three and a half years after my son was born, at that point, I've passed all of the neurological exams. They did, you know, touch your nose, walk and hop on one foot, those kinds of things. But my brain scans also finally came back as normal. Finally my brain deflated back to, you know, I was wrinkly, beautifully wrinkly again. And at that point, my neurologist said, you know, I've never in my 25 years of experience have seen anyone go this far and then actually come back. And not only did you come back, but you happen to be a writer. And he was the one who put the idea in my head and suggested that I write this book. But I have to admit to be, I walked out of that appointment. I was like, hell no. Visiting that time. I am not doing, I am just walking away. I'm going to, you know, and it's part of healing, right, to just kind of say, I'm putting that out of my head, I'm walking away. And so I did that for years. And after my novel came out, I didn't go back. I left writing for many, many years because anytime I thought about writing, I just kept seeing myself. You know, the process of writing that book was so difficult because when I would go to the desk and sit down, it required so much effort for my brain to put together sentences that it would result in these massive headaches. And I would have to literally turn from my chair and just kind of collapse onto the ground and, you know, in a fetal position. So for years afterward, every time I thought about writing, that's the image that came to my mind over and over. And I was like, I can't do that. So I went on and I did a lot of other things, a lot of other projects. And then at a certain point, I realized that the story wasn't going away. And my neurologist words kept ringing in my head and I came back and I decided to write it. And. And, you know, it's not an easy process. It took many years, and for a long time, I wrote it all the way through like it would be a, you know, a narrative of any sort. But I kept thinking, you know, something's not right. Something's not right, something's not right. And it was after many, many Dr. And many walks through the park and that I finally realized that I had to break the structure and do what you called out at the very beginning and have the chapters mirror the different islands of my brain so that the structure actually mirrored the story.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow. That's amazing. Well, the end result is incredibly powerful, and I'm. I'm really glad you wrote it personally, because, you know, not everybody goes through. Not most people don't go through this.

[Samina Ali]

Right.

[Zibby Owens]

So. And a lot of people who do then can't end up writing about it. So it's a service you've done for a lot of other people as well. And a novel. I mean, I saw that on your website and everything.

[Samina Ali]

I mean.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, my gosh.

[Samina Ali]

Wow.

[Zibby Owens]

Well, so how old are your kids now?

[Samina Ali]

My son is 25 and my daughter is 15.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow. Oh, my gosh. And have they read this book?

[Samina Ali]

They haven't read it yet. I just got the copies in the mail, so literally yesterday. So I did. I unpacked it yesterday, and, you know, I will be sharing the book now.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow. How do you think they'll receive it?

[Samina Ali]

I think they will have different responses. I think for my daughter, it's, you know, she's 15, and I, you know, I think she's not quite cognitively there yet. I think she's just like, thank God you survived, Mom. That's amazing thing, you know, But I think for my son, who much older and it's kind of our story, and so I think he'll have a much different response. I think he'll. He'll feel the impact and he'll see it. Hopefully he won't feel guilty about any of it because, you know, one of the things that I want to highlight is that it is. It was such a difficult time in my life, but one of the things that I want to get across in the book is that we all experience these dark times, and many people are experiencing these dark seasons right now in life, whether it's because of the LA fires, whether it's because of anything else that's happening in the world. And. But we need. You know, I think that what I want to show is that we're resilient and we're strong and we can make it through and, you know, to trust. Trust in our bodies and trust in what we can do and trust in humanity and trust that we can bring the light that we want to see. So for me, this isn't a tragic story. I think it's a miraculous story that gives us hope, hope that we can endure the dark times.

[Zibby Owens]

You mentioned earlier that one of the things you wanted readers to take away was to advocate more for themselves in the medical space. And if there's something wrong and you know it, that you have to keep speaking out for yourself. What. And you said there were. There were many messages. Were there any other messages that you haven't shared yet with me today?

[Samina Ali]

I think you, you know, the message of hope, I think is really important for me. The. The message of resilience, of hope, of holding on and making sure that, you know, even in the darkest times that we're going to endure. But I also think that, you know, having experienced what I did, you know, almost dying or dying, coming back, having to really re engineer my brain, put it back together, put back together different parts of my organs, it's difficult to come in. It's impossible to come back from an experience like that and not be changed. And I. The core messages that I want people to understand too, is, you know, that the connections that we all have as humans, and that's really at the bottom of it, you know, are the way that we are all bound to one another, the way that we're all connected to one another and to get beyond the divisions. And so I think that faith is one of the important themes of the book. And I talk about Islam, but I also talk about how Islam is connected to other religions, whether it's Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism, all of these concepts that we believe in, and to allow those concepts at the core, because they are essentially the same, to allow those things to bring us together. So. And then even beneath that, you know, it's beneath that whole. Beneath the spirituality, you know, just recognizing that we're just so connected on such a cellular level. And so I think that that's where I went. I went down to that cellular level in order to rise up again. So that was one of the things that I came back with.

[Zibby Owens]

Well, bravo. Inspirational. Really inspirational. And thank you so much for sharing it, and I'm sorry you had to go through all that, but obviously you've found your way through it and to a place that can help the rest of us. So thank you.

[Samina Ali]

Thank you, thank you so much.

[Zibby Owens]

You're so welcome. Okay, well, it's nice to meet you. Okay, bye Bye bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram ibyowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh and buy the books.

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[Warby Parker Advertiser]

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