MKR’S Kaylene gets personal.
THE REALITY STAR OPENS UP ABOUT HER PAINFUL ACCIDENT AND FINDING HOPE AGAIN
Kaylene is as bright and bubbly as they get, but for the MKR: The Rivals contestant that wasn’t always the case. After being involved in a horrific accident at 18 years of age, the former army member’s life was changed dramatically. “When I was in the army, I was involved in a rollover accident with a medium rigid vehicle,” Kaylene, 29, tells New Idea.
The accident resulted in debilitating back and neck problems that, after years of rehab and physio, never fully went away. By age 27, Kaylene was fed up.
“I got really depressed and overwhelmed by my injury because I was 27 and I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do,” she says.
“I was on full-time medication, I was going to weekly physio appointments, but I also had negative thoughts about myself, thinking that I was useless.”
After one particularly bad flare-up of her injury that left her struggling to move without being in pain, Kaylene decided to enrol in a functional movement course.
“I got a back specialist that goes through basic movements … it helped me to get out of the house and move again,” she explains.
“I also enrolled in an anxiety workshop to help me understand my anxiety and deal with it.”
It was in this workshop that
Kaylene was encouraged to find something she was passionate about, and it was then that she discovered a new purpose and something that brought her joy
– baking!
“I went home that night and I cooked for hours and I loved it,” she reveals. “I brought all my stuff into the rehab facility I was going to and I gave out my creations.
“I got the biggest high out of seeing how much it touched [the rehab patients] that someone was caring for them.
“I have to thank the people I was in rehab with because … they pushed me and made me into a better person.”
Of course, Kaylene’s back problems are still an ongoing issue, but thanks to her rehab, she is now able to manage it.
“I’m still on medication, I still do fortnightly physio appointments and I’m still restricted in some things, like I can’t sit down for too long,” she reveals.
“Sometimes I can have really bad weeks, but it’s nothing that is a long-term thing now, it pops up here and there.”
What’s more, Kaylene is hoping that she and her sister Kerry can win the top prize on MKR: The Rivals so she can open her own bakery.
“I would love to have a little shop that sells cupcakes and treats,” she gushes.
“I would also love to do weekend classes [at the bakery] for people in rehab going through different things like PTSD and depression, to get them out, as I know what they are going through.”