At 17, the world was there for Silvan local Caitlyn Redfern to take.
The previous year, she had won the Victorian Pony Club State Dressage Championship medal, and in March 2010, she was preparing for the next State championships, having just qualified.
Caitlyn’s childhood dream was to compete at the Olympics, and she believed it was possible, until she had a fall from her horse, Sam, on her ménage.
Caitlyn was rushed by ambulance to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a soft tissue injury to her left hip and leg.
However, something didn’t feel right. She could not feel her left leg properly, and it was cold and discoloured.
Several days later, Caitlyn returned to the hospital and was re-diagnosed with bilateral fractures to her pelvis. Still, that didn’t seem to be the correct diagnosis.
After seeing various doctors over a 12-week period, she was told, “We just don’t really know.”
Her ‘fractures’ turned out to be growth plates, but the pain continued and only got worse over time.
Later that same year, Caitlyn was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, which, she says, marked the start of “15 years of the most traumatising time of my life.”
Since the accident, Caitlyn has undergone approximately 30 operations, including the implantation of a spinal cord stimulator with leads placed in four spots along her spinal cord.
For nine years, it gave her minor relief, but it was never enough.
The continuous pain was unbearable, and she felt like she was going through hell.
In the last twelve months, Caitlyn had seven more surgeries, but none of them provided any relief.
With emotional and financial support from her parents, Lorraine and Geoff Redfern, her grandparents, Lynda and Archie, and good friends, along with a GoFundMe campaign, Caitlyn traveled to Atlanta in May for a costly treatment not available in Australia.
The chronic pain and physical limitations had reached the point where Caitlyn had considered taking her own life, there was only so much she could endure.
As a last resort, she spent three weeks receiving treatment at the Neurosolutions Centre of Atlanta.
This involved intensive brain-based functional neurology therapy. Caitlyn went from “severe, ten-out-of-ten pain to zero pain,” she said.
Back home, Caitlyn now follows a rigorous daily routine of up to four hours of physical therapy and various treatments.
Encouraged by the results in Atlanta, she set herself a goal: to complete the 5km fun run as part of the Melbourne Marathon event on Sunday, 12 October.
This felt like a miracle because, just four months earlier, she had been unable to walk without a walking stick or mobility scooter.
Three weeks before the fun run, she had another surgery, but walk she did. In fact, she ran and walked the event.
Her brother Ben traveled from Wodonga to be with her, along with her best friend from school, Juliette Haddow.
To mark the occasion, Caitlyn had T-shirts made up commemorating how, just four months earlier, she had been unable to walk, yet now she was running in Melbourne’s biggest fun run.
The last kilometre was tough.
She had done little training, but the obstacles she had overcome over the past 15 years made her more resilient than ever.
She was determined not to be beaten.
She just wanted to finish, putting one foot in front of the other, overwhelmed to the point of tears along the last stretch. The trio finished in under 43 minutes.
Some doctors had told her she would never run again, let alone walk.
She proved them wrong, crossing the finish line and being presented with a finisher’s medal.
Persistence and self-belief got her through.
On Monday, the day after the fun run, Caitlyn was stocking shelves with romance titles and serving customers at her A Thousand Lives bookshop, located at 1385 Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road, Woori Yallock.
She wore her finisher’s medal with a little temporary pain in her legs, but this was to be expected after completing a fun run with 6000 others.
Next year, Caitlyn Redfern intends to run the half marathon.
