Stephanie Kelly was just 23-years-old, when a car accident changed the entire course of her life.
Despite years of health battles, including a heart condition and weak connective tissue, Stephanie's world was exactly how she hoped it would be — she had a career she loved and a flourishing relationship.
"I was working full time as a paediatric nurse and I loved my job so much," Stephanie tells Mamamia.
And she had worked hard to get there, having been forced to leave school prematurely because of frequent hospital visits.
One night, after a shift, Stephanie and her now-husband decided to grab dessert at Max Brenner. As their car passed through a roundabout, another vehicle ploughed into them, striking the passenger side where Stephanie was sitting.
"I couldn't feel my left arm, which I thought was really strange, and I had a lot of pain in my chest and a lot of pain in my neck," Stephanie says.
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The couple was taken to hospital and several serious injuries were identified — including a brachial plexus injury in Stephanie's left arm.
"That's the main nerve that runs from your spine into either arm, and my rib cage had been twisted. I also had two slipped discs in my neck."
Stephanie had expected to be off work for around three months to recover — a period of time that already felt huge for her and her partner Adam, who had been dating for around 18 months.
"I just didn't anticipate the severity of it and how long I would actually be off work." She certainly didn't anticipate what was to come over the next two years, as her stomach completely shut down, eventually becoming paralysed.
"I was doing intense physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, rehabilitation," she says. "And then six months after the accident, I noticed some changes with my bowel habits, some changes with my appetite."
A couple of months later, she shared her symptoms with her GP — bloating, distension, constipation, vomiting, and weight loss.
The doctors decided to watch and wait for the time being, and about 12 months after the accident, Stephanie saw a gastroenterologist.
"We did a gastric emptying study which measures how quickly food leaves your stomach and it showed that my stomach was essentially paralyzed," she says.
Stephanie was diagnosed with gastroparesis, caused by a combination of the crash itself, subsequent medication, and her preexisting health conditions.
Because she was so malnourished, Stephanie's medical team took quick action, reducing her medication and connecting her to a short-term feeding tube. But there was no improvement.
"The paralysis was widespread throughout my entire digestive system," she says. "So, my intestines weren't working, my colon was really slow."
What followed was a two-year journey of relentless surgical feeding jobs, inserted into her abdomen or through her nose.
"I went from being able to eat essentially very normally, to nothing. My quality of life was just terrible. I was a shell of who I was because I was so malnourished. I wasn't absorbing any nutrients. I truly felt like I was dying.
"I just felt like I'd lost all my independence because all of a sudden I can't eat or drink anymore. We really couldn't travel, couldn't do anything, and obviously I was already recovering from the accident."
Her pre-existing conditions also worsened, leading to a heart procedure in 2019. She couldn't drive, due to her left arm being in a sling, and her right arm suffered overuse injuries, and required surgery.
"I was really, really, really sad, like, very depressed."
A new beginning.
In 2020 Stephanie's doctors suggest she start using a TPN or Total Parenteral Nutrition, which involves being fed nutritional products intravenously, bypassing the usual process of eating and digestion.
"As a nurse, I knew all the implications and risks, such as liver failure, and I was petrified of that," Stephanie says.
"It's quite tough on the body. At the end of the day, it's not natural to get all of your nutrition through your bloodstream."
Eventually though, Stephanie agreed to an intermittent TPN, meaning she was in and out of hospital to undergo the process.
"That didn't last very long because I was so sick. And once I'd go home, I'd essentially just lose all the weight that I gained in hospital."
The following year, Stephanie reluctantly learned the gruelling routine of setting up her own TPN, and agreed to trial the nightly routine at home.
Setting up the TPN is an intense process. "It's on an IV pole, which is then attached to a plug because the pump needs power," says Stephanie. "A lot of people, when I upload on social media, assume I'm in the hospital."
The TPN then runs for 12 to 16 hours.
"When I wake up in the morning, I disconnect, which is not as easy as unplugging your phone from a charger. It's a sterile routine. And then I start my medication," she says.
"I don't have to eat, so I never eat breakfast, unless I go out and meet my friends for coffee. Then I will normally have a snack later on, because I feel like I need to chew something."
If she does eat, Stephanie must drain her stomach via a tube to avoid nausea and vomiting. Usually around 6pm, she'll start setting up her TPN for the night.
"Sometimes I set it up at 4pm if I have to get up early the next day, or if I get to sleep in the next day, I can set it up at 8pm."
Despite the gruelling nature of the process, Stephanie says it took just two months for her to wish she'd began a year earlier. "I'd finally felt that difference of being nourished versus malnourished."
Although Stephanie says having an IV pole in the bedroom doesn't always feel sexy, she and her husband, Adam, have managed to keep their spark alive, and try to schedule date nights when they can.
That means either carrying a 2kg portable TPN backpack, or delaying the TPN for the night, which means a later start the following morning.
"Sometimes I'm a little bit lazy and I will set my TPN at midnight. And that means that I'm then attached to it until midday the next day, which is frustrating.
"It's like that inner battle of 'do I really need to do this?', but this is like life or death I guess for me."
A brighter future.
Despite what Stephanie describes as a year of "absolute hell", she and Adam were married in June last year. And now, they're considering when to start a family.
"The (medical team) pretty much gave us the green light once my heart was kind of fixed and I'd gotten off the medication," says Stephanie.
"It has been pushed back a little bit, but we are super keen over the next few years to start a family."
She also wants to travel, after spending most of her twenties in and out of the hospital.
"Seven years of my twenties have just disappeared, and there's been a lot of suffering and sadness and pain, a lot of lost living. So I really kind of want to just experience a lot of fun things and travel a little bit."
Stephanie has also returned to work as a special care nurse, looking after premature babies.
"Even though I'm now earning money on social media, I still love being a nurse."
Stephanie has been documenting her journey on social media to help others going through a similar situation, and now has 165k followers on Instagram and almost 454k followers on TikTok.
Feature image: Instagram/@stephkkelly.
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