Vow to succeed

By EMMA SUN
THERE was not a dry eye in the room when Kallista’s Hanna Mitchell said her wedding vows to her husband Rob last year – for more reasons than one.
Ms Mitchell had suffered a stroke only months before that, which put her in intensive care for 10 days in a coma.
After waking up, she had to relearn many basic skills, including how to communicate.
She worked intensively Eastern Health speech pathologist Jemima Bradford-Flego and practised at home to learn her wedding vows and wedding speech.
Recalling her story in time for speech pathology week this week, Ms Mitchell said it was frustrating relearning all the skills that had been second nature to her, but her determination pulled her through.
“I had (my wedding vows and speech) all written out and we went through them,” she said.
“I had to practice a lot and it took a couple of months. It was really important for me because my partner had stuck with me through it all and it was a very emotional thing for me.”
She said the ceremony went really well with no hiccups.
Ms Bradford-Flego said Ms Mitchell’s case was unusual because she used to be a speech pathologist herself, who worked with children.
She said one of the main things they focused on was pitch and tone, as Ms Mitchell’s tone tended to be very even.
“She wasn’t able to raise or lower her pitch when she was speaking so she couldn’t get across the meaning of her thoughts,” she said.
“You wouldn’t know if she found a joke funny or was upset because you couldn’t hear her tone changing so our work started around practicing and getting that control back and trying to build some new pathways in her brain to control that variation in her vocal cords and breathing and using resonance.”
Ms Mitchell said she had improved a lot since her treatment and still attends the sessions once a fortnight, as well as practising at home.
She said she looked forward to getting better and having children in the future.