When Stephenie Rodriguez, 53, from Sydney, NSW, was bitten by a mosquito she had no idea it would nearly take her life. She tells her story in her own words …
After landing in Nigeria on a work trip, I sprayed my arms and legs with mosquito repellent.
A tech entrepreneur, I often travelled overseas to speak at events, and knew mozzies carried malaria. However, anti-malaria pills had made me feel awful on a previous trip, so this time I wanted to avoid them.
Instead, I didn’t go outdoors, stayed at the same hotel my conference was being held at, and doused myself in mozzie spray.
On the last day of my week-long trip, I was speaking at an event and was invited to have photos taken with the delegates at sunset. Knowing we’d be outside next to a pool – the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, before going, I showered and covered every inch of my body with mozzie spray.
The next day I flew from Nigeria to New Delhi, India, to speak at another event.
The first hotel I was booked to stay at in New Delhi, was infested with mosquitoes.
Pesky mozzies, I thought, moving to another hotel.
Returning home to Canberra a week later, I felt like I was coming down with the flu.
It’s just something from the aeroplane, I thought.
With my work trip done, I was ready for another flight – but this time for fun. The next morning, my best friend Liz, then 27, and I headed to Boston, US, for a girls’ trip.
After saying farewell to my son Constantine, then 13, who was staying with my ex-hubby, we were set.
“You don’t look well,” Liz worried, waiting to board the plane.
But, running on adrenaline, I soldiered on. Four days later we were back at the airport ready to fly home. By now I was fatigued and sweating.
“I’m going to grab a champagne for me and a snack for you,” Liz said.
Suddenly, the world went black …
Coming to, blinking my eyes into focus, I couldn’t move. Tubes were down my throat, my hands and feet were bandaged, and my nose itched.
Propped up with pillows, I waited patiently for someone to walk past, and tried blinking to grab their attention when they did.
I’m alive, I’m going to be OK, I told myself, thinking of Constantine back home.
“Am I dying?” I mouthed when a nurse noticed that
I was awake.
“You’re in the ICU recovering,” she replied.
I found out I’d been in a coma for almost two weeks.
Exhausted, I fell asleep.
A few hours later, my business partner, Fiona, was at my bedside.
It turned out, I’d had a seizure at the airport.
“Doctors didn’t think you were going to make it,” Fiona sobbed.
It’d been caused by cerebral malaria, which I’d got from a mosquito bite.
It’s when parasite-filled blood cells block small blood vessels to your brain, and swelling of the brain and brain damage can occur
Scarier still, docs revealed if I had made it onto the plane, my heart would have exploded when the cabin pressurised. I was lucky to just be alive.
While I was still in a coma, my mum, Elizabeth, had flown to be by my side. But, not wanting to scare Constantine, they hadn’t told him how ill I was until he arrived a week after I’d been admitted to hospital.
During the time I was in a coma, he’d sent voice messages from Canberra, and when Liz played them, doctors noticed I had a neurological response to my son’s voice.
With severe septic shock, I was given a drug to force blood away from my extremities and towards my vital organs, in a bid to keep me alive.
“If we do nothing, she dies,” doctors warned.
“Just save her life,” my mum had told them.
Given my last rites three times, I kept fighting.
After 45 days, I was flown to Canberra Hospital to continue recovering.
As my bandages were rolled down, I could see my ankles were purple and turning black.
‘Your right foot is 70 per cent necrotic and 30 per cent of your left is,’ a doctor said.
My feet were dying due to the lack of blood flow.
I needed a double amputation from the knees.
If I can cheat death, maybe I can rehabilitate, I thought.
Thankfully, my friends rallied around to help care for my boy, and support came in every direction.
Visiting me in hospital, Fiona suggested I get a second opinion.
So I discharged myself, and we drove to see a specialist in Sydney who was willing to try a less drastic approach.
After a Christmas holiday at home, I went into surgery in Sydney to have just my toes and heel caps amputated in a series of operations. I hoped it would save my feet.
Being the only visitor allowed, Constantine visited and we played Jenga.
“I love you, Mum,” he smiled, before leaving for the night.
By February 2021, doctors at the Prince of Wales Hospital had done everything they could to help, but wounds on my heels wouldn’t heal and my bones were exposed.
That’s when I met with Professor Munjed Al Muderis, a pioneering orthopaedic surgeon.
He told me that the only way I would walk again, was if I agreed to lose my feet.
“I will have you up and walking within two weeks,” he said.
It was hard to accept at first, but I had the amputations, and two weeks later I was up and walking, as he promised, with the help of prosthetics.
Putting one foot in front of the other, I was determined to get better.
Now three years since that mozzie bite, 39 surgeries, 440 days in hospital and two new prosthetic feet later, I can wear heels and also go snorkelling with my boy.
I cheated death three times, now I’m living my life to the fullest.
This story originally appeared in that’s life! magazine and has been reproduced here with permission.