Tyler Wright opens about 14-month battle to get health back
Two-time world champion surfer Tyler Wright was so sick she couldn’t get out of bed for more than a year. Now as she prepares to return to the water, she tells The Sunday Telegraph how she overcame the biggest challenge of her life.
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Two-time world surfing champion Tyler Wright can’t remember anything about her 25th birthday.
The celebration last March is lost forever, a victim of a debilitating virus that has taken 17 traumatic months to overcome.
In just one year, Wright went from travelling around the world as a professional surfer to not even being able to hold a conversation.
The web of neurological complications caused by Wright's battle with a condition called post-viral syndrome left her bedridden for 14 months and frequently in tears.
It also included crushing headaches, an inability to handle light or sound or perform the simplest of tasks, such as making a cup of tea.
“It caused havoc with my body and my brain and it’s taken this long to get back,” Wright told The Sunday Telegraph/
“I've only just started remembering things again. Essentially my brain suffered the most. My body was shocking, but my brain … I mean I couldn't have a conversation.
“I pretty much spent 14 months crying because nobody could tell me what was going on.”
Most of the surf community, let alone the wider Australian population, weren’t aware of the battle the face of Rip Curl endured as her career and life were placed on hold.
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In her first interview, Wright spoke to The Sunday Telegraph ahead of her comeback to the world surf league women's tour in Hawaii tomorrow.
She said the nightmare began after she was hit by influenza A and fever while on the surf tour in South Africa in July last year.
“When I was in South Africa the doctors sent me home from hospital and said: ‘You'll feel better in a couple of days’,” Wright said.
“I ended up being unable to get out of bed for 14 months.”
Wright retreated to her home on the South Coast of NSW where she required 24-hour care, with the burden falling on her family and her partner, acclaimed singer-songwriter Alex Lynn, better known as Alex The Astronaut.
“I was at my house, my partner Alex did most of it,”' Wright said.
“She's probably the one who has seen all of it and can remember more than I can.”'
Wright saw countless medical professionals but they had no cure, just advice to rest.
“I didn't understand what was going on because to me, I could still move my body,” Wright said.
“I just couldn't think, or process, or walk to the garden without freaking out, which is a very strange thing, from how I lived.
“The way I see it is, the virus got my body and my brain and my whole nervous system.
“I couldn't watch a movie. If someone was talking to me, five minutes in, I would start staring at the floor.
“It's not that I didn't want too, I would be on the verge of crying in pain. Any loud noise, I would freak out.
“As a result of my stressed brain function, there is so much that I can't remember from the past year.”
Three days before her 25th birthday, Wright announced via press release that she had withdrawn from the first half of this year’s world tour, which she had won in 2016 and 2017.
Surfing felt impossible.
Even when she had the urge and ability to pick -up her board, she would collapse in a ball on the beach.
“One day, I convinced myself I was better and told myself to ‘stop being lazy’.” she said.
“I'd paddle out and come back in and sit on the sand with a full-blown panic attack.
“Eventually, my sister's husband began picking me up every day at 5.30pm to drive me to the ocean and put me in. I would shuffle 20-metres into the water.
“I was the only time of day that I felt I would be okay.”'
Wright turned to meditation, planting a vegetable garden and listening to Bob Dylan on repeat.
“It was a hard 14 months with not a lot of answers,”' Wright said.
Wright credits the intervention of neuro-orthopaedic rehabilitation expert Brett Jarosz as the turning point of her life.
Wright’s older brother, fellow world tour surfer Owen had worked with the Melbourne-based Jarosz during his own recovery from a serious brain injury in 2017.
“It's been three months since I went from bedridden to where I am today,” Wright said.
“And it was all from my neuro-rehab with Brett.
“He definitely brought me back. It was four sessions over four weekends.
“The first weekend he tested me and the second weekend he put me back in the water.”
“Once you understand brain function, now I get why I couldn't think.
“The parts of my brain that needed to function weren't and when I over stimulated them with conversations or information, it would shut down.
“I’d be agitated, angry, paranoid, my thoughts didn't line up.”
The fierce competitor admits she’s both excited and apprehensive about returning to take on the world’s best surfers in Maui.
“It took a lot out of me,” Wright said, adding she is 10kg lighter.
“There's a part of me that is super-excited and there's another part that is traumatised and I’m still working on that trauma.
“I'm proud that my partner has been there the entire time, which hasn't been easy.
“I have a really good and confident team behind me.
“I've taken every step to get where I am today and to put a jersey back on in the next couple of weeks, I’m proud of that.’’
Originally published as Tyler Wright opens about 14-month battle to get health back