Carolyn Lim: Struck down by lightning, not by life

She's been struck by lightning, comatose for six weeks and undergone brain surgery, but all that couldn't get former teacher Carolyn Lim from making the best of her situation. Today, Carolyn is happily married, has finished her master's degree and has a new book detailing her ordeal.

This is one tough, plucky lady.

On that fateful day -- September 10, 2006 -- Lim was out windsurfing when a freak lightning attack left her floating unconscious, facedown in the water. She awoke six weeks later from a coma only to discover her hair shorn off for neurosurgery, her left leg and right hand numb, and burn marks from where the lightning struck her. When she finally gathered the courage to look at her reflection, she was horrified.

"I thought, oh my gosh, I look like a toilet brush. No, the toilet brush looked better. My mouth was crooked. I considered my eyes to be my best feature, but my right eye was skewed and I had a feeding tube in my nose," says the 30-year-old in an interview with the Straits Times.

But all that couldn't get her down. She worked to regain her motor skills and speech, and even overcame her wheelchair-bound condition to walk -- albeit slowly -- without support.

Looking back, she says she learnt to "make lemonade from the lemons that life throws at you." Her upcoming book, "Making Pink Lemonade" describes her struggle to get her life back on track and make the most of her situation, in the hope of encouraging others to do the same, when faced with adversity.

She even drummed up support from her alma mater, Raffles Institution (Junior College), where inspired students held a pink lemonade fund-raising sale, collecting more than S$1,500 for her book. Individual donors also made out checks totaling over S10,000, and a local business was willing to print the book and offered publicity material at a subsidized rate.

Making Pink Lemonade can be pre-ordered now at www.makingpinklemonade.com, and will be available from The Canteen at Shaw Centre from late November.

You can also follow Carolyn's thoughts and writings on her Facebook page, which offers this: "It's funny -- many may see me and think "Poor thing!" but I feel like one of the most blessed people in the world."