After being bitten by a mosquito in Nigeria, an Australian socialite has 36 surgeries and has both feet amputated.
Stephenie Rodriguez, a 52-year-old Australian socialite, has described how she had her two feet amputated and underwent an 18-month nightmare after contracting cerebral malaria from a mosquito bite on a trip to Lagos.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the single mother and digital entrepreneur traveled to Lagos in 2019 to speak at a business event for travel executives. During the gathering, she and the other invited guests were requested to meet outdoors for a picture shoot near to a pool of stagnant water. She said that when she was there, she was bitten three times on her left ankle by a mosquito.
Rodriguez, armed with enough insect repellant, claimed she meticulously drenched herself in insect repellant but did not take any anti-malaria medications due to a negative response she had when she took one previously.
''The organisers asked me to go outside for a photo shoot with delegates. They had drones, shot B roll [extra footage], and vox pops. It was filmed next to a pool of stagnant water. It was sunset. That’s when I believe I was bitten three times by a mosquito on my left ankle” she said
Rodriguez stated that she began to feel tired and ill days after coming to India, but disregarded the symptoms as 'out of character' and 'compound jet lag.' It was while she got to Boston that she had to be rushed to the hospital after she took ill at the airport and was struggling to eat and drink.
Rodriguez was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where an infectious diseases expert confirmed she had cerebral malaria. She was already in a coma at that point. Rodriguez had a 2% chance of life when Artesunate, a medicine used to treat severe malaria, put her into septic shock and organ failure, according to the physicians.
Doctors used vasopressor medications to divert blood flow from her extremities to her essential organs in a last-ditch effort to save her life.
"It was the last trick in the bag, and they cautioned my family that if I survived, there would be collateral damage. The vasopressors robbed my feet and hands, the things furthest from my heart, of blood and like frostbite, the areas without blood and oxygen began to die." she said
Her feet and hands became black from necrosis as a result of the medicines, and she saw her own toe fall off into her fingers at one point.
"It was horrible, absolutely horrible. Completely unimaginable,' she said.
After being transported back to Australia, doctors informed Rodriguez that he would need to have an above-the-knee amputation as well as numerous fingers amputated. Rodriguez claimed she was terrified by the prospect of the treatment and instead elected to undergo many skin grafts and procedures to see if her health would improve.
She eventually had to get her remaining toes removed and realized she couldn't put it off any longer.
Rodriguez, who was wheelchair-bound and unable to stand due to excruciating agony, underwent major surgery to have both feet amputated and replaced with above-ankle bilateral osseointegrated implants and artificial feet.
"It's bizarre, but I had to cut my feet off to walk again," she said.
A pair of prosthetic feet are attached to the ends of each rod using an allen key, allowing Rodriguez to move freely again.
Rodriguez, however, is the first woman in Australia to have the implants and artificial feet invented by Munjed Al Muderis, an Australian academic. The Iraqi who went on to become a famous robotic limb surgeon told her that giving up her blackened dead feet was her last chance of walking again.
Rodriguez celebrated a recent accomplishment of being able to walk in a pair of 4cm kitten heels again after surgery and hours of hard rehabilitation.
"I never really felt 'dressed' until I had a pair of killer heels on; the higher, the better. That's just the sort of girl I was... still am," she said.