Even when Susanne Chapman could not walk or find the words to speak, her mind and body were trying to swim.

As she lay in a hospital bed in a rehabilitation facility after suffering a massive stroke, Chapman could be heard saying — “On your mark, get set, go.”

“Nobody knew what that meant, but my husband,” she recalled.

What her husband recognized was that despite her limitations in communication and movement, Chapman was imagining herself standing on the starting block of a swim race.

Following years of rehab, she still suffers from the effects of the 2012 stroke, including paralysis on her left side. Sitting inside The Wave with the pool behind her, Chapman recently shared her journey of recovery that lead her to competing in a recent state swim meet.

“Water saved my life when I had nothing to believe in,” Chapman said. “Every day I thank God I can swim.”

Chapman grew up a military child with her father serving in the U.S. Navy. She began swimming at a young age and then competed competitively as a teenager. She would go onto to be a water safety instructor and teach her four children to swim.

Chapman made a career in hospitality management and was working for Xanterra Parks & Resorts in Yellowstone National Park when one day while at home she suffered a massive stroke. Her husband, Jim Chapman, who was the executive chef for Yellowstone was out of town on a business trip.

A friend found Chapman two days later on the floor of her home. Her organs had begun to shutdown. National Park Service rescue crews worked quickly and flew her to the University of Colorado where in a coma she was put on life support.

“They hoped that maybe I could someday wake up and learn to feed myself,” she said. “Based on my directive my husband disconnected my life support, but I lived.”

Chapman’s only memory from that time was the feeling of laying on her back floating in a pool. She said it was dark all around her and she knew if her face fell below the water she would die. Lying in her bed, those around her observed her moving her head back and forth just as if she was trying to keep her face out of the water.

Her husband chose Craig Hospital in Colorado for her to begin rehabilitation for one simple reason — they have a warm water pool.

“That decision saved my life,” she said.

Following months of painful rehabilitation, Chapman was finally able to get in the pool. Incredibly for the first time the right side of her body began to work.

In 2014 Chapman and her husband moved to the Flathead Valley. He is now the executive chef for Xanterra for Glacier National Park.

That’s when Chapman continued her recovery by swimming at The Wave. When she first began she could talk “very little” but through swimming met people and her language skills improved. At The Wave, she met swim instructor and coach Carrie Jacobs and local open water swimmer Emily von Jentzen.

Roughly one year ago she took her first swim with one arm across the pool and back. She has been swimming as part of the Coach on Deck adult swimming group, which is open to all swimmers over 18 no matter their ability.

Through the encouragement of Jacobs and von Jentzen, she competed in the 2017 Montana Masters State Championship swim meet last month in Kalispell. Chapman finished the 1-mile swim with a personal best time.

“I had years of speech, physical, and occupational therapy, but it wasn’t until I swam that I began to recover,” she said.