Ron Kochut jokes that he’s never quite sure who he’s going to wake up with each morning.
Will she have a South African accent or an Eastern European one?
Oh, it will be his longtime wife, Kelly, alright. But he’s never knows what she’ll sound like.
Whatever inflection her speech takes, it’s a long way from the how the Steveston-raised, 58-year-old used to sound, at least until 2010. That was when she somehow lost her footing racing to catch a SkyTrain and fell down a series of stairs at a Downtown Vancouver station. While it wasn’t a head-over-heels tumble, doctors examining her case believe the damage was akin to shaken baby syndrome where the brain is concussed.
With no visible trauma, Kelly tried to go right back to work at Canada Post where she’s been for 35 years. But there was something wrong.
The way she pronounced words had started to change, making it sound like she had a foreign accent. Her short term memory got shorter. She couldn’t count higher than four and had to pause to determine her left from right hand.
“She looks down and knows she writes with her right hand, then realizes her left hand is the other one,” said Ron, whom she met when both of them worked at Canada Post.
While medical testing ruled out conditions such as a stroke, it was five months before a doctor at UBC diagnosed her with Foreign Accent Syndrome — a condition first documented in 1907, and to date has only been affixed to around 60 cases worldwide.
Doctors don’t know why it manifests or how to treat it.
But Kelly knew how she was going to live her life.
“You can just curl up in a little ball and feel sad for yourself. I wasn’t going to do that,” she said. “Yes, something happened to me and I got sick. But life goes on; and it will go on, but in a slightly different way.”
She keeps in touch with others diagnosed with FAS on social media and has discovered a common thread — each suffered migraines since childhood and had a traumatic incident that possibly triggered the foreign speech condition.
“One person developed it after visiting the dentist. Another had a spider bite,” Kelly said.
Part of not giving in meant staying physically active, something she had been doing since her early 50s with the goal of becoming a personal trainer in retirement.
She became an experienced and accomplished runner, taking part in numerous 10 km and half marathon events. That led to her being named a leader of the local Sun Run training group at the Steveston Community Centre.
“With the way I was, I started to think — am I useful any more?” Kelly said.
“Then I was given this opportunity to be a leader. Now, I run to see the people I’ve led in training finish their 10 K or half marathon. I get great satisfaction from that.”
It’s a challenge, both physically and mentally as Kelly’s memory issues can provide problems when she’s away from her familiar local running routes in Richmond.
When she runs in 10 km. and half marathon events away from home she starts with a running buddy, simply follows the pack ahead of her, and has another buddy meet her near the finish line.
But while taking part in a sparsely populated run recently, the field thinned out to the point she lost sight of the runners in front and knew she had to stop and withdraw for her own safety.
“I didn’t want to get lost,” she said, adding there’s no fear of that in her Steveston neighbourhood where most of what she needs shopping-wise is within familiar walking distance.
Plus, merchants in the village readily recognize her and provide extra care if they see she seems confused.
“I love Steveston. It’s my neighbourhood,” said Kelly who attended Lord Byng elementary, then went on to Burnett secondary. “And when people say, ‘pardon,’ I know something I’ve said must not be quite right. But they take me aside and offer me help, if I need it.”
It’s a far cry from the take-charge kind of person she was when tasked with mail collection along Vancouver’s rough and tumble waterfront area.
“I used to be known as a pit bull,” Kelly said. “I had to deal with plenty of longshoremen in my time. But I think about other people and what they are going through, and I am happy to have my health.”
