Recovery after a stroke

Chantell Gabin (neé Bernon), one of our Bankmed members, shares her story on suffering a life-threatening stroke two years ago. Today she is thankful for her second chance at life, and the care and support she received from Bankmed.

A month after giving birth to her third child, Chantell (37), experienced a sudden, intense and agonising headache. ‘At the time, I was getting my other two children ready for school,’ Chantell recalls. ‘I remember asking my husband for a painkiller before everything went black. Apparently, I then stumbled into the wall, before collapsing in my baby’s room where I started vomiting. My husband came in to check on me and immediately realised it was an emergency. He tried to find my pulse, then called his father and an ambulance.’

Chantell works as a debt collector at the Wesbank call centre in Durban. She received expert help within a matter of minutes and was admitted to the Ethekwini hospital. She was semi-conscious and paralysed on the left side of her body. A CT scan revealed a large intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH), a life-threatening type of stroke.

ICH is usually caused by the rupture of tiny arteries within the brain tissue. As blood collects, a haematoma (blood clot) forms, causing increased pressure on the brain. The most common causes of a haemorrhagic stroke are high blood pressure, injury, bleeding disorders, drug use, abnormal blood vessels and aneurysm (when a weak area in a blood vessel breaks open). Healthcare Professionals are still investigating exactly what caused Chantell’s intracerebral haemorrhage.

Neurosurgeon, Dr Erastus Kiratu, performed emergency brain surgery to remove the clot and Chantell woke up in ICU with a large bandage covering the staples on her skull. ‘I’m still trying to piece everything together,’ she says of her ordeal. ‘It was scary waking up and realising I was paralysed on the left side of my body. My coordination was extremely poor and I was experiencing short-term memory loss. Although I could recognise all my family members when they visited me in the hospital, there are parts of my children’s childhood that I have no memory of. I’m very fortunate that my speech wasn’t affected by the stroke.’

‘When I went in for the operation, the surgeon warned my husband that there was a 50% chance that I would lose all cognitive function,’ she says. ‘At the same time, they had no choice but to operate.’ Determined to prove how strong she was, and how grateful she was for having a second chance at life, Chantell has focused all her energy on her recovery process. ‘I had to learn to eat with a knife and fork again, how to walk again and how to write. For a long time, I could not watch TV or read a book because all the images and words were jumbled.’ A multi-disciplinary team helped her every step of the way which included Healthcare Professionals such as a physiotherapist, occupational therapist and a psychologist.

Bankmed is proud to report that a year after her stroke, Chantell was able to return to work. She is still slightly compromised on the left side of her body, but she is making great strides towards a full recovery. Because she suffers from epilepsy as a result of her stroke, Healthcare Professionals have suggested that she refrain from driving for the foreseeable future.

‘When I first came out of the hospital, I moved in with my parents in Newlands East,’ she explains. ‘My mother had to care for me, and I couldn’t carry my baby. Together with an occupational therapist, my sister, who is a biokineticist, got me up and moving. Co-ordination exercises included picking up beans, threading a needle and pointing to my nose, and I was taught to walk again with the help of a walking stick.

As a Bankmed Core Saver Plan member, Chantell’s hospital bill of more than R200 000 was covered in full. ‘If I didn’t have Bankmed medical aid, I don’t know where I’d be,’ she says.

Chantell believes in the power of staying positive and chooses to surround herself with strong, upbeat people during her recovery. ‘I’m a mother,’ she says simply. ‘I wanted to bath my baby again, to be able to cook for my children and to do things for myself,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to be seen as being disabled.’