● Chandler Plante was perfectly healthy until contracting COVID in December 2020. ● In the months that followed, she experienced a number of troubling symptoms that were initially dismissed as anxiety. ● Later, Plante would reveal that she had a series of ischemic strokes and a mass behind her eye that led to vision loss.
A healthy woman in her early 20s has spent the past four years traveling a health journey she could never have imagined.
Chandler Plante, an assistant editor at POPSUGAR and former PEOPLE contributor, was healthy and moving on with her life when she was infected with the original strain of COVID in December 2020.
Speaking with PEOPLE about her experience with misdiagnosed strokes that ultimately led to her vision loss, Plante says her attitude helped her overcome the harsh reality she faced.
“I started having these weird symptoms. I had bad migraines that just wouldn’t stop. I started having tingling in my hands and forearms — things that were different, but I just didn’t know to worry,” Plante tells PEOPLE.
“And then in March I had my first stroke, but it was misdiagnosed as an anxiety attack. I had numbness in my left arm. My whole tongue went numb in my mouth. I actually passed out in the ER, and that’s when things really started to go wrong. ”
Plante’s next stroke occurred in June when she was with “someone who could advocate on my behalf.”
Chandler Plante/TikTok (2)
“The doctors finally did an MRI with contrast and were able to find that my internal carotid arteries were critically stenosed,” noting that the condition was “really not typical for a 21-year-old.” It was determined that Plante had suffered an ischemic stroke.
However, this was not the only complication that Plante had to deal with. In November 2021, she woke up with numbness in her head after stents were placed in her carotid arteries.
“I felt like everything was great. I was ready to start my life again. I was going to go through everything and then boom again, numbness.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Can This one Candy is a breakthrough for panic attacks? Doctor explains why it ‘works really well’
After another trip to the hospital, Plante was discovered to have a large mass behind her eyeball, originally diagnosed as a meningioma, a type of brain tumor.
“I remember almost celebrating with my mom, because a brain tumor is something you can cut out. It’s something you can name, and we were very happy to have an answer,” Plante recalls, noting that when she was flying home on treatment, she learned that it was not a brain tumor.
Not only was she left with no response, but shortly thereafter Plante “woke up with no vision in her right eye.”
“In the end, I waited for 12 hours because it was the time of the highest number of COVID. The hospital beds were full. There wasn’t even a person to do an MRI. There wasn’t even an ophthalmologist on duty who could see me,” he shares.
“I ended up having to go against medical advice and lose my insurance to go to another hospital because there was no one there to help me.”
Plante eventually received treatment at a teaching hospital. “I was already on all these blood thinners because of my strokes. No one could really operate on me at that point and really nothing could be done anyway because that inflammation that was causing my strokes was causing compression in my eye of the nerves and decrease in blood flow.”
At times, Plante’s eye protruded from her head due to inflammation.
“You can’t remove that inflammation because it’s intertwined with all these nerves and all these important muscles, and you can decompress it, but that’s about it, so we do that, and then it flares up again, because that’s the nature of inflammation. The best we can do is to address the autoimmune part of it all and try to prevent flare-ups from occurring.”
Plante remains flexible with her treatment options and has sought advice from medical professionals from Lenox Hill to the Mayo Clinic, noting that it’s a “very complicated process” given that researchers are still learning about COVID and the long-term of what is believed to be be related to everything that happened to her after the initial infection.
“Right now we’re dealing with it with methotrexate and Retox, which is a form of immunotherapy, an immunosuppressant. I get them every three months. But you know, my eye still looks a lot different and it’s not just taking the eyeball out and making it better. I can’t get my vision back,” he said. she.
“There’s no going back. This is something that changed my life forever,” she continues. “I did all the ‘right’ things, but this is something we still don’t fully understand. I think a lot of people with mysterious medical conditions can relate.”
The medical episode also led to a number of lifestyle changes, including moving back home from New York to have a support system as she navigated her new situation.
“I was dealing with all the medical trauma of waking up with no vision and watching my parents react to the visual impairment I developed, watching my eye slowly deteriorate,” says Plante.
“I had to completely rethink my whole life,” she continues. “I had to come home. I had to put my journalism career on hold because I was so exhausted I couldn’t even open my eyes to check my email. I was in so much pain the whole time and I felt like many of my peers for sure they couldn’t understand how exhausted and weakened I felt all the time. I had to come home and I lost all my independence. I just learned to drive again.”
She says, “It’s something that still takes a toll on me. I’m trying really hard to heal from it, not just deal with it.”
Part of that healing included her positive spin on making fun of herself and the situation on TikTok, where she has amassed over 250,000 followers.
“I try to have a good attitude and bring sunshine to it. I think sometimes people see me joking about it and don’t understand that I have to live with this every day, so I can’t carry the full weight every day.”
Plante, now 24, also showed fans her new collection of eyeball-themed candy, from home decor to jewelry.
“I’m just a joke. I have all the jewelry. I have all the carpets in the apartment. It’s all the things that make it a little less scary. I think positivity is the only thing that has kept me going.. Sure, there are some days that are harder than others, but positive a conversation can make my whole day. When you’re in pain, when you’re going through something very dark, those little tiny moments of light, that’s all. That’s what made life bearable at the time, so it was a matter of survival. I said , ‘No, I can’t live like this,’ so we had to lighten it up a bit.”
Plante says she still feels conflicted about how the situation, and especially her misdiagnosis, unfolded.
“It’s interesting because I definitely have anxiety and I was grateful that it was taken seriously and addressed, but also, this was such a big thing that I missed. On the one hand, I felt grateful that they addressed my mental health, on the other hand, I’m horrified that I overlooked the whole ischemic stroke thing.”
“As women, I feel like we shouldn’t have to choose between the two,” she points out. “I feel like I should be able to resolve my anxiety before I’m 21 and also have a huge medical episode caught, especially when I present in some of the most traditional ways. Fortunately, I don’t have any harm from it, but we could have caught this thing a lot earlier and maybe prevent another stroke from happening.”
Plante’s story is still unfolding, but now she can share some of the lighter moments with fans. During her time on TikTok, she says the community there has been “incredibly supportive.”
“I think so many people’s lives have been affected by COVID and long COVID and chronic illness in general. People understand what it means to be affected by illness and pain and want to understand how to get through difficult things. That’s something I always stress about, is that you can do hard things. It doesn’t have to be so dark all the time. You can go through dark times in a way that still relies on humor and light.”
She notes, “There are internet trolls and that will certainly continue, but I tune them out. It kind of adds fuel to my fire, in a way, to want to be better and be even smarter. I’ve had people comment and say, ‘You wouldn’t should have been this happy.’ And yet, I am. I honestly am, and it makes my day.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education