Progressive paralysis was the only warning sign that an active mother of two and avid surfer was suffering back-to-back seizures.
Jenny Hellyer, 43, was returning home from a day at the beach with her family in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales on January 6 when she began to feel paralysis spreading down her right leg.
At first she didn’t notice anything because she was in the passenger seat while her husband was driving, but that quickly changed when they got home.
“As I went to get out of the car, my leg collapsed out from under me,” he said. 9News.
“I felt like my leg was a flag waving in the wind, like it wasn’t connected to my body at all. I tried to take a few steps but I couldn’t walk.
“Nothing made sense. I thought maybe it was a tic or a snake bite. I tried to figure it out.”
Things got worse when Ms Hellyer suffered numbness on half her face and suddenly had “a strong metallic taste” in her mouth.
He wondered if it could be a stroke, but argued that he was “too young”.
Jenny Hellyer, 43, was a fit and active mother who was shocked to discover she had suffered a stroke.
However, as she Googled her symptoms, it became increasingly likely that she was having a stroke.
“I turned to my husband and told him I thought I had had a stroke and needed to go to the hospital,” Hellyer said.
Her husband called an ambulance, which rushed Mrs Hellyer to Lismore Base Hospital, where an MRI scan revealed she had suffered two major strokes and several mini-strokes.
TO GoFundMe The page set up by David Orourke said Ms Hellyer “was left with the right side of her body shocked and was found to have suffered two strokes on the left side of her brain”.
‘As an incredibly healthy and fit mother, this has been a tragic and unexpected end to the lives of the entire family,” she wrote.
‘As anyone who knows Jenny knows, she is an amazing mother of two beautiful children who works tirelessly in environmental research.’
‘Before her two recent attacks, Jenny made surfing and Muay Thai look easy.’
After two weeks in the hospital’s intensive care unit, Ms. Hellyer took her first steps.
Although it has been a gruelling rehabilitation, Ms Hellyer (pictured) has managed to surf again.
Ms. Hellyer was transferred to another hospital where she received intensive physical and occupational therapy.
“Jenny is having to ‘rewire her brain’ (a challenging process) and strengthen the weakness in her right arm and leg,” Orourke wrote.
‘Cognitive screening tests unfortunately also revealed that the stroke affected parts of his brain that were related to concentration and memory.’
Ms Hellyer said she felt “like a foreigner in my own home” when she was eventually discharged and had difficulty completing simple tasks.
“It would take me an hour and a half to unload four bags of groceries because I couldn’t process where I should put each item,” she said.
Doctors discovered a small hole in his heart that he was born with, as well as a blood clotting disorder, both of which increase his risk of having a stroke.
Still, Ms. Hellyer said her friends and family were shocked by what had happened.
“The most common response I get is, ‘But you’re so fit and healthy,'” she said.
Stroke Foundation chief executive Dr Lisa Murphy said many people mistakenly believed strokes only happened to older people.
“Stroke does not discriminate: it can happen to anyone, at any age,” he said.
‘Although the risk of stroke increases as we age, about 1 in 4 strokes happen to young, working-age people.’
(tags to translate)dailymail
