CHELSEA'S STROKE STORY
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A loving mum would do anything for her child. But what if, when they needed her most, she couldn't be there.
Chelsea Henderson was a lot of things. She was a community registered nurse. She was a recent first home buyer, working on DIY renovations. She was planning her wedding to her fiancé, Hamish. She was a new mum to Charlotte, her four-month-old baby girl. She was fit and healthy. She was 30 years old.
And in June 2023, Chelsea became something else: a stroke survivor.
"I went to get up and I couldn't do a thing," Chelsea recalls. "I couldn't talk. I couldn't pick Charlotte up. My face felt quite strange, almost numb. I couldn't yell out to my partner, so I was just banging on the wall."
While this was a scary experience, Chelsea assumed she was getting a migraine. After an hour, she felt like herself again, and brushed off the experience.
What Chelsea didn't realise is that she had experienced a Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA). A TIA is a kind of stroke where the signs last for a short amount of time. Despite the signs not lasting long, TIAs are extremely serious. They are sometimes called "warning strokes", because more than 1 in 12 people will have a stroke within a week after a TIA. Unfortunately, Chelsea was one of those people.
The next morning, Chelsea woke up and found that she couldn't move her arm. When she got out of bed, she realised she couldn't walk or talk properly, and the right side of her face was drooping. Hamish could see something was wrong and called an ambulance, though neither he nor Chelsea knew exactly how serious this was.
"I'm very grateful for Wellington Free Ambulance," Chelsea says. "[A paramedic] came straight in and said, 'You're having a stroke'. I said 'I'm what? No, I'm not! I'm fine!'"
Chelsea was rushed to the Emergency Department. Like she thought the day before, the staff initially believed Chelsea was having a severe migraine. However, a CT scan was carried out and revealed that, like the paramedic said, Chelsea had experienced a stroke.
Chelsea recalls the fear she felt at the time: "It was quite scary, sitting in ED, I'm away from my four-month-old, I don't know if I'm going to be able to hold her because I can't move my arm."
Chelsea spent one night at hospital, and then had a week on "night leave", where she spent her days at the hospital but could go home to her daughter at night. After she was discharged, she faced another challenge: recovery.
"It was a long process and not how I wanted to spend maternity leave," she reflects.
Chelsea's right arm had lost a lot of strength and required intensive physiotherapy so she could hold her daughter again. She struggled with forgetfulness and getting her words mixed up. And while her recovery has gone well overall, she still finds busy rooms and large crowds tough to handle.
"I'm so grateful that I can walk, and I can do everything now," she says. "Just the little things are not quite the same."
Chelsea and her family were left wondering what caused her stroke, as she didn't have any of the typical risk factors associated with stroke. She didn't have high blood pressure or atrial fibrillation, she wasn't a smoker, and she lived a healthy, active lifestyle - not to mention, she was only 30 years old.
"I didn't tick any of those boxes, and yet it happened," she says.
Eventually, further testing revealed the cause of Chelsea's stroke: she had a patent foramen ovale (PFO). A PFO is a small hole in the heart that everyone is born with, and usually closes shortly after birth. For some people - like Chelsea - this doesn't happen. This hole can allow a blood clot to travel from the heart to the brain, causing a TIA or stroke. Pregnancy can increase the risk of this happening.
"They don't routinely check people for [PFOs]," Chelsea explains, and adds: "We will be getting Charlotte checked she she's over one."
Half a year on from the stroke, Chelsea is back to wedding planning and house renovations, as well as spending time with her young daughter. She's also working again and is planning to do an education session with other community workers on stroke symptoms.
"People being familiar with the F.A.S.T. acronym is really, really important," Chelsea says. "How many people don't recognise those signs?"
As well as knowing the signs of stroke, Chelsea wants other people to not brush off any unusual health symptoms.
"Don't ever think that it's okay, it will pass or there's nothing wrong with me - because that's exactly what I thought," she says. "Any symptom, you need to get checked no matter how small you think it is."
You can learn more about stroke symptoms and sign up for free F.A.S.T. training here: https://www.stroke.org.nz/fast
