After
the student came down with meningitis, she contracted purpura fulminans,
a rare bacterial infection. On Dec. 27, 2004, at a hospital in San
José, the Central American country’s
capital, she was given 72 hours to live.
The young woman was kept in isolation
because her immune system was compromised so any illness could kill
her and she could pass the infection to others. After antibiotics,
she wasn’t contagious,
but still at risk of dying.
Her doctor didn’t give the family much hope,
but another doctor in secret told her mother, Josie Villafranca-Muñoz,
about a medicine made in Holland too expensive for that hospital to stock and
even offered the overseas phone number. The family had four treatments costing
$1,200 sent across the ocean and soon the patient’s immune
system improved.
But the purpura fulminans caused another dire complication. Her
skin turned black, then had to be removed. That left open, burnlike,
extremely painful wounds on 90 percent of her body, according to
Dickey.
With no healthy skin to patch the open sores, a
nurse told the mother about patches made by Ferris Corp., a California
firm, that also were not available at the hospital. The family spent
between $1,200 and $1,800 weekly on the patches, first using money
from relatives and friends.When that was exhausted, they took out
a bank loan and got funds Barrantes-Villafranca’s schoolmates
had collected.
Her toes had to be amputated, then a physician thought
of an innovative way to heal the soles of her feet. With the only
normal skin on her buttocks, he cut a skin flap open there and attached
the bottoms of her feet in the hopes skin could
regenerate. Barrantes-Villafranca
laid on her stomach with her legs
painfully bent for two months during
the most challenging time of her illness.
With the exception of two weeks, she remained
hospitalized for nine months, then was at home with the expensive
bandage changing for 15 months. (Four months before coming to the
United States, Ferris Corp. began donating the patches.) They eventually
healed her arms, but 70 percent of her body still had openwounds.
The student hadn’t walked in two years.
Seeking assistance
“She had been so sick for so long,”
Dickey recounted, that an American relative of the mother living
in Costa Rica contacted a physician at a San José foundation,
who brought Dr. Rae Schnuth, the assistant dean of clinical curriculum
development at Michigan State University who was there with medical
students to work with the underserved, to see this unusual case.
“Rae came back (to America) and started
sending e-mails to people,”
Dickey says, hoping to get supplies and a hospital bed created
for burn victims, for which Hill-Rom is known, donated.
“One was to Janet Barber at
Hill- Rom. Janet sent the e-mail to me because the company that
I work for, Steo-Medical, Tampa, Fla., is Hill- Rom's exclusive
distributor in Costa Rica." As the Batesville woman read the
e-mail, her heart sank. The mother of two (Claire, 10, and Ian,
7) with husband Brad thought, “What if it was my child? How
could I not help?”
Hill-Rom agreed to contribute a
bed, but once Dickey viewed medical
records and wound photos by e-mail,
she decided Barrantes-Villafranca
needed treatment in the U.S.
Shriners hospitals for children in
Tampa, Fla., and Galveston, Texas,
were not equipped to handle the
unusual illness. “I felt horrible
because I had given them hope,” Dickey recalls.
Off to Shriners
She got on the Internet and went
to a Shriners Web site, where she
learned there was a hospital for burn
victims in Cincinnati. “I had no idea.”
In November 2006, she left a message
for the care coordinator.
According to Dickey, “She called me
back the next morning and asked for
an application and medical records.
The next day she said, ‘If you can get
her here, we'll take her.’”
Dickey flew down to Costa Rica
Jan. 3 and brought the youth to
Cincinnati the next day with the help
of air transportation donated by a
private company.
The good news: “They have completely
grafted all of her open
wounds” using cadaver skin and her
own skin during a series of five surgeries,
four in January.
The bad news: Barrantes-
Villafranca had no sensation in one
foot, and a bone infection in the
other. The infection had weakened
the bones in her feet and lower legs
so that she couldn’t walk and had to
be contained before it spread
throughout her body. A few weeks
ago, her legs were amputated below
the knees.
Her mother knows what would
have happened if they had stayed in
San José. “They would not have
found out about the bone infection.
Very possibly after two years of
working so hard trying to survive,
she would not have survived because
of the bone infection.”
A bilingual Shriners nurse and
Dickey, who learned Spanish during
a one-year stay in Ecuador, became
translators for the mother and
daughter. The Batesville woman visited
the hospital every two or three
days, “to be a friend and do what I
could to help.”
According to Dickey, the strawberry
blonde girl “just never ceases to
amaze me. She has the strength of no
one I've ever known before. She's a
fighter – she never gives up. She's
got an incredible attitude and very
good outlook and I think that anybody
that she comes into contact
with is touched by her. She's an inspiration
to me and really, you know,
even the nurses and doctors at
Shriners, people were crying the day
she left. She's just a very special person
once you get to know her.”
Dickey’s family has been praying
for the young woman each night
since November. “We knew we needed
to find a host family” for
Barrantes-Villafranca, who will have
to be monitored by Shriners Hospital
for Children, Cincinnati, for the next
year. As they grew to know her better,
“We all just felt like we wanted to
do it.” The teen came to live with
them upon her March 2 hospital discharge.
“It's been great,” Dickey
reports.
Amazing network
She downplays her role in
Barrantes-Villafranca’s treatment
and recovery, saying there’s a "huge,
amazing network of people who have
been trying to help her."
Dickey marvels, “I got a check
from a guy in California who nobody
knows ... People in Batesville have
heard about Paulette and Josie and
called to say, ‘What can I do to help?’
I know what a great community
Batesville is for helping other people.
I felt like Batesville would be a great
place for her to recover and get on
her feet again – literally. It really has
been that way.”
Down the road
What’s next? In about three
weeks, Dickey will take the Costa
Rican to a Shriners orthopedic hospital
in Lexington, Ky., where casts
will be made of her stumps, so prostheses
can be created. Two weeks
later, she will return there to learn to
walk again.
Dickey is so excited. “I told her we
will have a huge celebration that day.
Maybe we'll go dancing.” Then the
woman is hopeful Barrantes-
Villafranca can go to high school here
while she continues to improve.
As the trio tell this story in
Dickey’s home March 6, they reflect
on memories they will carry forward.
Dickey says, “I think I'll remember
all the little milestones.” A Shriners
physical therapist has been coaching
the teen on exercises to regain her
balance. “The other night ... she
walked all around the room on her
knees ... I see huge progress every
day. I think I cry every day” – happy
tears.
For the family, this has been a
learning experience. “For my children,
it's been a great lesson in compassion.
For me, probably (I’ve
learned) ‘Don't sweat the small stuff’ because it's
made us appreciate everything we have and not to worry
about things that don't matter.”
The amputee’s mother, speaking
one day before she returned to Costa
Rica, will remember two milestones:
One fine day six weeks ago when her
daughter felt no pain after so many
months of suffering. “She said, ‘That
was a very important day for me.’”
The second date was Feb. 10, when
Dickey brought the young woman
home from the hospital for a day for
her 18th birthday party. Her mom
observes, “So many people without
ever knowing her showed her so
much love.”
Gratefulness was in the air. The
Costa Rican mother told the
American mother, “You and your
family have been incredible, the most
special people in the world. Without
knowing us, you opened the doors to
your house and your heart. If it wasn't
for you, none of this ever would
have happened.”
When asked to describe how she
feels about the Dickeys’ support,
Barrantes-Villafranca smiled. “I give
them a lot of thanks because without
even knowing me they have adopted
me.”
Debbie Blank can be contacted at (812)
934-4343, Ext. 113; or debbie.blank@cnhimedia.
com. To comment on stories, visit
batesvilleheraldtribune.com.
