Joy unlocked
Baby delight for dad with locked-in syndrome
After five years and spending more than $100,000 on IVF treatment, Nick and Nicola Chisholm were ready to give up their dream of having a child.
But on March 26, the first day of lockdown, the Dunedin couple’s dream came true, with Nicola giving birth to triplets Dakota, Ruby-Soo and Loki.
It has been close to 20 years since a series of mini-strokes, culminating in a massive brain-stem stroke, rendered 47-year-old Nick nearly immobile. The then27-year-old rugby halfback collapsed during a game on July 29, 2000, after he passed the ball wide and his vision went blurry.
He staggered to the sideline and told the coach he felt sick; to put him back on the field in 10 minutes. But he blacked out.
Nick woke in hospital. While he was given the all-clear to go home three days later, the six days of seizures that followed saw him become bedridden, noncommunicative, and in pain both physically and mentally.
He was diagnosed with lockedin syndrome, which usually occurs when a stroke blocks the neural isthmus connecting the brain to the body. All cognitive functions remain intact, but the body is unresponsive.
Nick’s younger brother, Survivor NZ host Matt Chisholm, a former reporter with TVNZ’s current affairs show Sunday, has briefly returned to the show to share his sibling’s baby joy.
‘‘He can’t walk or talk so he isn’t going to be a hands-on dad, but I think he’s going to add a lot of value. He’s a wise, sage, middle-aged man whose got a great outlook,’’ Matt said.
‘‘I think a child will add the same things to Nick’s life to anyone’s life. Going on and becoming a dad is a really beautiful thing for me to see, but it’s going to give him purpose outside the gym and teach him there are more important things than him.’’
Matt added if Nick had not focused his energies on recovering from accident, he would struggle to get out of bed every day – let alone get married, have children, and train those with disabilities to walk and rebuild their lives.
Nick, a six-time New Zealand body-building champion, can’t use muscles in his hands, fingers and wrists, but can move big muscle groups. He communicates by spelling out individual letters he looks at on a transparent Perspex board.
Nick and his wife, 48-year-old Nicola, had been trying for a baby for five years and had eight rounds of IVF in San Diego.
They picked an American fertility clinic because there was only a five per cent chance of getting pregnant using Nicola’s eggs, and the wait for an egg donor in New Zealand was two years.
Matt said going overseas was a ‘‘massive mission’’, let alone a person with locked-in syndrome.
‘‘They went back [on their final attempt] to say goodbye, thank you – and close that chapter and move on with their lives without a child. They did not put much pressure on themselves to get pregnant.’’
So when Matt got a phone call from the couple saying they were expecting, he ‘‘couldn’t have been more ecstatic for anyone ever’’.
Nick was there for the lockdown delivery but had to leave the hospital soon after. Nicola, on the other hand, suffered blood clots on her lungs and severe bleeding which required three surgeries to get under control. While Nicola could visit Nick whenever she had the strength, it was four weeks before he saw his baby again.
‘‘It was hard on both of them.’’
Nick met Nicola, who is originally from England, online in 2009 and they married in 2013.
‘‘Nicola is an absolute angel,’’ Matt said. ‘‘She left everything she knew in England to live her life with Nick.’’
Nick was Matt’s ‘‘hero’’ growing up.
‘‘He was great at footy, popular, had everything going on. It was really, really hard for me to see him knocked over and all that taken away from him. To have a lot of long talks with him about him not wanting to live and euthanasia, and then to see him get his spark back and find love and finally have children – I couldn’t ask for anything more.’’
Matt still regarded his big brother as a hero.
‘‘He teaches me how to live every day and I don’t always get it right, but he’s become a really good teacher and he’s an inspiration.’’
In December, Matt shifted from Auckland to Central Otago’s Shadow Creek to be closer to his brother in Dunedin. ‘‘We’re only two hours away now and we’ll be able to spend more time with him and his little family.’’
Matt says he enjoyed a brief return to television reporting to tell the country his brother’s story.
‘‘It was very fun story to do. I was hanging out with my bro whose always been my hero, and I know people will resonate with it and be uplifted by it,’’ Matt said.
‘‘We didn’t think he would find love or have a child so for him to get to this point is a beautiful, beautiful thing.’’
Sunday airs tonight, 7.30pm, on TVNZ 1.