A woman who had to have stents implanted in her brain due to a "mystery illness" permanently lost vision in her right eye after the stents "choked out" her optic nerve. Chandler Plante, 23, suffered a stroke in March 2021 and lost all vision in her right eye eight months later. While the vision loss wasn't caused by the stroke, it happened as a result of her treatment.
She hasn't received any official diagnosis for her ongoing health problems - which include frequent strokes, head and face inflammation. Her doctors have speculated it could be down to an autoimmune condition - even a "really severe" version of long covid.
She's been through multiple rounds of radiation, courses of steroids and chemo drugs - and will need to take aspirin daily for the rest of her life to prevent the strokes from coming back. In July 2021, Chandler had coronary stents implanted into her brain. Her arteries - which are typically meant to be 4mm wide, were measuring at just 0.5mm.
The procedure was meant to widen her arteries and prevent blood clots and inflammation. But some of the stents dislodged and "choked out" her optic nerve. As a result, Chandler went blind in her right eye.
Chandler, a magazine editor, said: “It’s such an enigmatic illness and it refuses to go away - it’s given me a really deep trauma. I’ve had so many different types of treatment - and it’s taken three years to find medication that doesn’t ruin my physical and mental health.
“No one fully understands why this has happened to me.”
Before her health concerns started, Chandler rarely fell ill. Her medical history was clear, and she described herself as a “normal 21-year-old”.
She came down with a mild case of Covid in December 2020 but recovered within a week. For three months, she went back to her usual routine - but on March 29, 2021, Chandler began experiencing a numbness in her hands and forearms.
She went straight to the emergency room - but she claims her symptoms were initially dismissed as “anxiety.” She said: “I was told to move along, so I left.
"But it kept happening - and on June 28, a brain scan showed the symptoms I thought were panic attacks were actually big ischemic strokes. I had so much inflammation in my head that it was cutting off the oxygen to my arteries - while they’re supposed to measure at 4mm, mine were as narrow as 0.5mm.”
An ischemic stroke is where a blood clot blocks the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain - it can be fatal. The following month, she had an operation to fit coronary stents to widen the arteries in her brain to try and prevent the strokes.
She had a second round of stents inserted in October 2021. A combination of surgery, steroid treatment and prescribed aspirin stopped Chandler’s strokes for a few months.
But in November 2021, the stents migrated behind her right eye and started “choking out” her optic nerve. She ended up going permanently blind in one eye.
She said: “Doctors were stumped, they had no idea what could’ve caused it. They questioned whether it could be a brain tumour, but all my scans showed up clear.
"It’s just really bizarre.”
Chandler underwent tests and doctors tried to work out the cause of all her life-changing symptoms. She had a craniotomy - keyhole surgery on the brain on December 6, 2021, and was referred for a lumbar puncture on December 24.
Tissue left over from her craniotomy was sent for a biopsy on December 29 - and tested for a severe form of long covid, as well as a brain tumour. In March 2022, she was prescribed an immunosuppressant called methotrexate - and in November of the same year, started a 10-day course of radiation therapy.
But each investigative surgery and treatment made Chandler feel worse - and it was becoming harder for her to stay positive. She said: “Each treatment made me feel horrible.
"I was experiencing horrific headaches and inflammation of my facial nerves thanks to my anti-seizure medication.
"It was excruciatingly painful.”
This continued until April 2023, when Chandler had her first infusion of a chemo drug called rituximab - a form of treatment she still has now. Her side effects have improved - and she’s beginning to get back to “some semblance of a normal life” again.
Chandler said: “For the first time, I genuinely feel like my treatment is helping me. This is the least amount of side effects I’ve ever had, which is fabulous. I’m on a combination of rituximab and methotrexate - another chemotherapy drug.
“I experience some hair loss and thinning but I balance this out with folic acid. It’s pretty normal for me, at this point."
Chandler began posting her story on TikTok using the hashtag #DisabledCommunity. Through this, she’s found a new group of friends who encourage her to advocate for herself and continue pushing for an official diagnosis.
She aims to make her videos as funny and light-hearted as possible - with one in particular showing off her “eyeball haul” - in which she bought a lot of eyeball-themed merchandise - like a necklace, a ring and a “tumbler completely covered in eyeballs”.
She said: “My page is about healing and positivity - and dealing with an absurd situation. Many people believe positive humans are just born this way - but I think it’s something I’ve had to practice. I was tired of suffering.
“Some days, those jokes I was making with my Starbucks baristas and nurses were the highlight of my day - because everything else was so horrible. It was a defence mechanism - I needed that positivity to lift me out of a really dark time. It helped me to heal in the most authentic way possible.
“I’ve made so many friends within the disabled community - I was so impressed by the kindness and humanity of the people around me, while I was going through something that genuinely made me question whether I wanted to be here.
“You’ve got to look on the bright side - it’s the only one you’ve got.”
