Alumni Runner to Celebrate 50 Years as Pediatric Stroke Survivor at 2019 Boston Marathon

Kim & Tedy before a team training run in Boston.

Kim Chadwell of Dracut will run the 123rd Boston Marathon® as a member of Tedy’s Team. This April will mark the 50th Anniversary of her stroke, which she suffered at just 6 years-old.

Alumni runner, Kim Chadwell, will celebrate her 50th year as a pediatric stroke survivor by running the 2019 Boston Marathon® with Tedy’s Team.

In April of 1969, when Kim was just 6 years-old, she fell off her chair in her first-grade class after suffering a stroke. The only thing that she remembers from that day was looking up at her teacher, seeing the expression on her face, and knowing something was wrong. While the stroke was of unknown etiology, Kim and her family did learn that she had a 50% occlusion of the carotid artery, which caused her to have the ischemic stroke.

While recovering from her stroke, Kim was able to come back to class and go on to second grade. Between the ages of 6 and 8, she was going to physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy so that she could fine tune everything.

“The first time I had met another stroke survivor was when I joined Tedy’s Team in 2016,” explained Kim. “It was healing to meet so many other survivors. The stories may be different, but the struggles of surviving and getting back to a new normal are the same.”

After her stroke, Kim had lost the ability to talk, walk and feed herself and had to retrain her body to do those things again. Today, she is living life as a faith-filled professional woman, married 30 years, mother of three, grandmother of seven, and soon to be a three-time Boston Marathon® finisher.

“I’m so thankful to be running my third Boston Marathon® as a part of this incredible team,” Kim said. “Living with stroke is certainly a game-changer, but it doesn’t need to sideline me from the life I want to live and the life I am able to live.”