Louise Duncan isn't going to lose sleep if she doesn't register a 70-plus score in Hastings because she'll have another chance at the Taupo nationals in a fortnight. Photo / Paul Taylor
Never mind walking or riding horses again, the doctor had made it clear to budding equestrian Louise Duncan she should have been counting her stars that she was still alive.
"You're lucky to be here because you should be dead," reveals Duncan of what the GP had said to her as she lay in a Palmerston North Hospital ward bed with photographs of her riding plastered on the walls in 2005.
She was 17 years old then, going through myriad emotions while battling meningococcal meningitis and the subsequent stroke.
Now 32, the para dressage rider has defied gargantuan odds to give herself a chance of representing New Zealand at the Tokyo Para Olympic Games from August 25 to September 6.
READ MORE:
• Para dressage rider Jodie Thorne's journey to Horse of the Year
• Local Focus: Para equestrians riding high at Horse of the Year
• Louise Duncan hasn't given up hope on qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics Games
• Levin rider close to qualifying for Tokyo Paralympics dressage despite losing top horse
Duncan, who runs her hairdressing salon business in Levin, and mount Spirit (nicknamed Wolkenstein BC) are in a "long list" of Kiwi combinations attempting to obtain certificates of capability for FEI (International Equestrian Federation) with one more score in the country to meet the NZ qualifying criteria.
She got her international credentials in Caboolture, Brisbane, last year.
Should it not happen for the Jasmine McBeth scholar at the Land-Rover Horse of the Year Show this week she will have another chance to obtain it at the nationals in Taupo in a fortnight.
She was two points shy of the required 70 points on Thursday and was having another crack on Friday night in the championship test.
Unfortunately the musical at Showgrounds Hawke's Bay Tomoana on Sunday doesn't count. Even though she will make the grade there are no guarantees the code's guardians will give her approval to compete.
Duncan was having dinner with a friend the night before when she had complained of a stiff and sore shoulder.
"I had felt like I had pulled a muscle or something, which wasn't uncommon because I rode," she explains.
About 3am she had headed for the kitchen where she had sculled nine glasses of water on the trot.
"I never used to drink water," says Duncan. "I used to hate water so I could drink anything but water."
The then teenager started feeling nauseous. She managed to find her way to the bedroom of parents — Frankie Webb, an equine coach, and Lloyd, a farrier — where she had a violent episode of vomiting which had tested her faith.
"Mum threw me into the shower with my pyjamas and all on but I was still sick in there so it was really awful."
The Webbs had woken up to news on the radio that day that gastroenteritis had taken hold of schoolchildren in the region.
Frankie had noticed a rash on Duncan's palms as well as the soles of her feet.
The time of 4.55am is an indelible imprint on her brain because that's when she had phoned the GP only to be told that if she had suspected meningococcal meningitis then a hospital visit was imperative.
"I had placed the phone [receiver] and thought it actually might just be the flu so we went straight to Palmerston North hospital," recalls Frankie.
At the accident and emergency ward, Duncan had to wait for four hours. She had to be carted around in a wheelchair.
A lumbar puncture had revealed a high white-blood count but the tests weren't conclusive until three days later.
Duncan's parents were sent home and she was confined to a hospital bed.
The doctors had also hedged their bets to cover for encephalitis, meningitis as well as a rare form of measles.
In the morning, Duncan had an excruciating headache but run-of-the-mill pills didn't help alleviate the pain.
"I can remember walking back to the bed and collapsing," Duncan reflects, revisiting the moment when the nurse was saying, "Don't you do that". However, she had blacked out as the metal bed frame came rushing towards her head.
Duncan had lapsed into a coma which had lasted nine days.
When she came out of it, she recalled making a howling noise because she couldn't speak.
"The doctor had come out and said, 'Can you please stop making that god awful noise because you're upsetting all those other patients', but I couldn't speak or move and I was quite worried."
Duncan had discovered she had a stroke when she had collapsed, in bouts of seizures.
She was transferred to a ward on her own where the nurses had adorned the walls with photographs of Duncan riding.
"The doctor had walked in to say, 'Hey, you can stop looking at those [photos] because you're never going to be doing those again. In fact, you'll be lucky if you can walk again."
Duncan had wept silently but her inner demons were feeding a rebellious teenage attitude — she didn't like anyone telling her what she could or couldn't do.
"So I decided he was a silly, old fool and didn't know what he was talking about and it was going to be fine."
She soon embarked on a mission to re-learn how to walk, talk and write. Nurses had helped her in a year-long stay in a hospital bed.
"With all that time in the hospital it gives you a lot of time to think and, I suppose, try to process things."
After about five months of the daily routine, Duncan had gone from someone who was stumbling with the help of two nurses, to someone who could walk unassisted, although a wheelchair was always within reach.
She often walked gingerly from her bed to a chair in her room despite falling. Suggestions to ring the bell for nurses' assistance wasn't an option although when asked she'd lie.
"They never thought anything of it because they always thought one of the other [fellow nurses] had done it so I did quite a bit of that in the early days," she says, mindful if she had got into a strife someone would have found her eventually.
Three months later Duncan was allowed to go for five-minute walks while undergoing rehab but mental fatigue had often set in with the physical one.
"I just didn't want to be paralysed because I'm just not that sort of a person."
Having found her feet again Duncan had set her sights on sliding back into a saddle.
"I could ride before I could even walk," she says.
She is indebted to her parents and the support crew which included her grandparents who had got her into old-time dancing to help her improve her co-ordination.
"It was a gold-coin donation which went to charity so they did a fund raiser for the meningitis foundation for me."
Almost two years post-illness Duncan had got back on her mother's horse, Hunniman, a thoroughbred grand prix dressage mount, thanks also to the family's circle of horsey friends.
The then 20-year-old had harboured a desire to go back to the pony club dressage national champs one last time in Taupo that year. She had captained the Manawatu/West Coast team to the nationals for four consecutive years before her illness.
Duncan had accomplished that mission, finishing 10th in Taupo.
She only became a para equestrian late in 2017 at the encouragement of Aimee Prout, of Tauranga, and her mother, Chris, when their paths had crossed in Taupo.
Having difficulties "rising to the trot" and finding balance, she was soldiering on to the point of tears because it was causing migraines and dizzy spells.
"She spoke to my mum and that's where the process had really started for another riding opportunity for me with all that pain I was in from competing."
Duncan loves Spirit, labelling the 17-year-old gelding her "soulmate". She adopts a que sera sera stance with the Hanoverian/Irish Hunter cross — who Beechcroft Equestrian bred in Auckland — because he tries his best.
"It's a live, breathing, walking, talking, moving animal so it's a combination and just about anything can happen," she explains. " I could go out there and he could get a fright."
The rider reveals she also is prone to making mistakes with her head injuries.
Duncan describes Spirit as caring, generous but a "little bit of a worrier".
"He's tried to speak to me but you can feel that when you're riding because he's saying, 'Is that what you want? Am I doing this right or should I try something else?' so he just loves me and is my soulmate."
She's not going to lose sleep if they miss the cut to Tokyo Paralympics — which is under the spotlight with the Coronavirus — because there's the Paris Games in 2024 and others beckoning.
"It's very exciting to get this far and it's an amazing experience," she says.
"It might sound a little cheesy but the journey is more important than the destination. It's about all the lessons you learn and the people and horses you share the road with."
Duncan is making her third visit to the Hoy Show as a para equestrian but has competed here as an able-bodied rider pre-illness. She is competing on another horse, Jed, a 16-year-old whose show name is Northern Ivanthus.
"My mum's been coming here for 30 years and I was quite often her groom so it's my turn this time."
A determined and passionate Duncan describes herself as a "little bit of a hot head" but has a positive outlook on life.
"I'm interested in other people and try to support others as well."
The Para family, she says, is just a wonderful group of people who support one another.
Her husband, Justin Duncan, a fencing contractor/farmhand, also is an ardent supporter who travels with her to marquee shows.
Louise Duncan and Spirit won the Queensland State grade IV para equestrian title in July last year, clinching three out of as many starts. She is ranked below No 50 as a grade IV para equestrian globally.
Spirit has been runner-up to his stable mates at the Hoy Show on both occasions and had captured the 2019 dressage national grade IV crown. Chris Beach and husband Tony bred Wolkenstein BC.
Watch: The Herald spent a year in camp with a top NZ football club – catch all the drama.