Williams column: Community High senior makes remarkable recovery

When Kelsie Tyler suffered a severe stroke near the end of her freshman year at Richmond Community High School, an advanced-studies diploma was not part of her prognosis.

Doctors informed her mother that Kelsie — even if she survived the massive bleeding in her brain — would not be the same person. "I just need her to be here," Dawn Tyler replied.

Kelsie, 17, was born with an arteriovenous malformation, and the tangled collection of vessels in her brain had ruptured. She endured a month in a coma, several months at VCU Medical Center and 1½ years of intense therapy. She received homebound instruction her sophomore year because of her physical and mental limitations.

The injury to her brain was no match for Kelsie's heart and determination. On Wednesday, she will graduate with an advanced studies diploma from Richmond Community High.

Kelsie, a member of the National Honor Society and the Mu Alpha Theta mathematics honor society, will attend Virginia Commonwealth University in the fall and pursue a career in the health-care field.

"I know other people doubted me, but that motivated me," she said during an interview in her family's Highland Park home.

The trauma inflicted on young Kelsie's brain April 28, 2008, left plenty of room for doubt.

"Two o'clock in the morning, I heard a kind of whimper," her mother recalled.

Kelsie said her head ached badly and pleaded for her mom to get help. "And then we just saw her leave us," Dawn Tyler said.

Kelsie's hands clenched and she vomited and passed out. Paramedics arrived minutes later to treat her. "My immediate thing was to just start praying," her mother recalled.

Doctors removed the AVM. After Kelsie emerged from her coma and began her rehabilitation, the doctors' pronouncements remained cautious and measured. Even the family wondered if Kelsie might follow her mother (Class of 1983) and her older sister, Keyelle (2005) to Richmond Community.

"We were like, 'Kelsie, you might have to go to a different school,' " her mother recalled. "And she would just cry and say, 'No, I want to go back to my school!'"

Richmond Community Principal J. Austin Brown, who is in his first year at the school, said he's impressed by Kelsie's resilience and determination.

"I have been told that when she became ill, lots of folks, including her own parents and staff members, sort of recommended to her that she probably would not be able to continue at this school" because of its rigorous college-preparatory curriculum, he said.

"I know that it was a struggle for her, and at times it was quite evident, according to staff members. But she did it," he said. "And it is a most remarkable story for an amazing young lady."

For that outcome, Kelsie thanks her neurosurgeon, Dr. Gary W. Tye, the staffs of VCU Medical Center and Children's Hospital, and Richmond school system speech pathologist Cheyenne Moss, among others.

She still has some issues with motor skills and short-term memory. "But basically, we have the same Kelsie: a little more strong-willed, and more talkative," her mother said. "She talks and is full of wit that wasn't there before. She's learned to advocate for herself."

She has also become a champion for children's health care, handing her Children's Hospitals "All-Star" card to U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner. For two years, she has worked as a hospital volunteer at VCU Medical Center. "So I know she has been really touched by her illness and that is going to guide her into the future," Brown said.

Kelsie said as much during a recent speech at a Children's Miracle Network event at Randolph-Macon College.

"I know that a part of me died on that dark and dreary morning of April 28, 2008. But it was a happy death because I know that things can only go up from here," she said.

"Sure, I'll have setbacks and some limitations that I will have to live with for the rest of my life, but I can handle it ... because the person you see before you is the beautiful rainbow after my storm."