I woke up with an accent! Aussie now sounds French
Learning to talk again after two strokes, Elaine got the biggest shock of her life
When dementia specialist Elaine Davidson suffered a heart attack and two strokes, she spent eight hours shivering on the floor, drifting in and out of consciousness, before her husband Bill found her.
“All I remember is waking up naked on the bathroom floor and not being able to speak or move my body at all. I knew I was having a stroke, but no one was home to help me,” says the 64-year-old from Doncaster East in Melbourne. “I just kept thinking, keep breathing Elaine, keep breathing – you can't die!”
After being rushed to the hospital, Elaine's doctors warned her family she might not make it through the night. The determined mum-of-two clung to life in a coma and then had to learn to walk and talk again. But when Elaine mumbled her first words, she stunned everyone.
“I had this thick and strange foreign accent. I sounded like I was born and raised in France, even though I'm a sixth-generation Aussie,” the grandmother-of-nine says with a laugh.
“The little ones kept saying to me, ‘Nanna, it doesn't sound like you! Where have you gone?'”
During her five-month recovery, Elaine was diagnosed with aphasia – more commonly known as foreign accent syndrome – which causes language difficulties as a result of trauma and damage to the brain.
While her doctors said most patients get their native sound back, this hasn't been the case for Elaine. Three years on, her thick accent – which sounds mainly French or Italian – has stuck. And despite the initial shock, Elaine says she's learned to love her new twang.
“Bill and I have this running joke that if people can guess my accent we pay for their meal or drinks! Most people think I was born in Europe so when I tell them I'm a true-blue Aussie, they're always shocked!” Although she's still struggling with some words and battling to walk long distances, Elaine's can-do attitude, resilience and zest for life has allowed her to get back to doing what she does best – helping others. “I made a pact that if I got better, I would help others to also get better. So I started a support group for people in my area who've had a stroke and need someone to talk to,” she says. “It brings me a lot of happiness and makes me feel as if I'm not alone.”