Chantal Kelly had a stroke at 37, caused by a carotid artery rupture.
On paper, Chantal Kelly had it all.
She worked as a forensic investigator and undercover police officer in Australia, running her own dog food business on the side.
“You tick all the boxes that society says will make you happy: the big house, the nice car, you could buy anything you want,” Kelly, 42, says.
That all changed when she had a stroke in September 2021 at the age of 37. Suddenly, none of those material things mattered.
“When I was sick, I didn’t think about any of that ... it changed my perspective on what was important in life.”
Kelly had been feeling feverish in the days leading up to her stroke.
Two nights before, her eyes felt heavy, like when you get tired.
She went to bed, knowing work meant going to court the next day.
“I got up [in the morning] ... and the first thing that I remember was putting on my mascara and my left eyelashes feeling weird.
“I got to work, and then my colleague said, ‘Are you okay? Your face is drooping’. We had a little bit of an argument, because she was saying, ‘You need to go to hospital’.”
Kelly lost the fight and was driven to hospital.
”Within two minutes of being in [the] emergency [department] and signing the paperwork, I couldn’t get up on my left side. My whole left side had paralysis.”
She was admitted to hospital and had a stroke the next morning while in the shower.
“My body was kind of waving, really weird, and tingling down my right side. I remember it quite clearly.”
Kelly’s stroke was triggered by a spontaneous carotid artery rupture or dissection, or a tear in the artery wall – a common cause for people in their 30s and 40s who experience stroke. The rupture caused a clot, which then caused the stroke.
According to Stroke Aotearoa New Zealand, one in four people over 25 will experience a stroke in their lifetime and up to 30% of strokes occur in people aged under 65.
She spent three weeks in hospital where she learned stroke symptoms and after-effects can affect everyone differently.
“When I was in the stroke ward, no two stories were the same,” she recalls.
“The common things are the facial droop, if you hold two arms out, one might go down or up, slurred speech.”
In her case, the stroke was secondary – the artery was the main issue.
“I wasn’t allowed to walk, I wasn’t allowed to move, I wasn’t allowed to get my blood pressure or heart rate up, because the rupture could happen again and cause another stroke,” she says.
“My body then learned that moving fast and getting my heart rate up, even walking was a danger ... [it] kept me safe by making me very dizzy and faint, and if I pushed too hard I could faint.”
For three months after leaving hospital, Kelly wasn’t allowed to leave her home or drive, but could gently walk around. She also experienced complications from her stroke and was hospitalised with gallbladder, liver and pancreas infections.
“I ended up in ICU [the intensive care unit] in extreme pain for five weeks. I ended up being 45kg and very sick, so the recovery was very slow.”
Doctors and occupational therapists helped with the physical side of recovery, but the ongoing impacts of the stroke also took a toll on her mental health.
“With having a stroke when you’re so young – and I don’t think this is talked about a lot – it’s not just the physical side, it’s the psychological side and the identity shift,” she says.
“You constantly compare yourself to what you could do before.”
Kelly was told she had to find a new normal. She could no longer work on the front line in the police force; she’d never be able to ride a horse again.
“I was like, you want to bet? I got a bit rebellious,” she jokes.
“My mental health took a bad turn and that gave me the moment to think, what do I actually want?
“When I was in hospital, I didn’t think about all the qualifications and my job – I thought about riding a horse, going walking, spending time with my dog, being out in nature. I always dreamed about moving overseas, but that security keeps you in one spot.”
She and her Kiwi husband Marc Kelly, originally from Ashburton, decided to leave their life in Australia and moved to the rural township of Rotherham in Canterbury in June 2022.
From there, they run a YouTube channel sharing their off-grid lifestyle and their journey as a couple since Kelly’s stroke, while she is busy creating a wellness business offering nutritional blends for drinks.
In the years since, her recovery has been a process.
“I used to have a really good memory and now I have to write everything down, so that’s probably not going to get better. But I’ve just kind of adapted and evolved in that aspect,” she says.
“My health is my number one focus, where before it wasn’t. I am very aware of my stress levels and I spend a lot of time in nature, I do cold plunging, exercise – anything that makes me feel good, really.”
Now, she’s set to run the 10.5km Heritage Traverse as part of the Hanmer Springs Half Marathon on May 2.
“Because of how my nervous system learned to keep me safe, recovery hasn’t been one big win – it’s been a lot of little pushes.
“I haven’t been running that long, because I’ve had to stretch my body. This is building that trust in my body again, that I can run for that long and I’m not going to die.
“I have run a 10.5km before I got sick, so I’ve proven to myself that I can do it.”
While she’d love to complete the race in an hour and 10 minutes, her main goal is simply to “finish strong”.
She says it’s “hard to put into words” what it will mean to her to cross the finish line, adding she’s not just running for herself.
“I’ve always wanted to inspire other people as well, especially people who have gone through major health issues – because when you talk to them, the one thing that I’ve found in common is that people don’t understand unless they’ve been through it.
“I want to show them that it can take a little while, and it’s not easy, but if you just keep moving forward even that tiny little bit of progression can do big things and big things can mean different things for different people.
“[For] some stroke survivors, a big thing could be just opening their curtains and being able to shower themselves. So you don’t have to win a race.”
According to organisers, about 2000 people have signed up for the Hanmer Half Marathon. The event is expected to raise nearly $25,000 to donate to the Hanmer Springs Community Trust.
Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. She specialises in all things health and wellbeing and is passionate about telling Kiwis’ real-life stories.