Welcome to Mayra's Blog!

Welcome to the blog about Mayra's progress. Check back often as this will be updated with any new news. If you have any information please e-mail me at amandafj at sas.upenn.edu.

Our first piece of information comes via the Journal News paper in White Plains, New York:

http://mail.google.com/mail/?auth=DQAAAG4AAAACMribtdrM_WT1omVoE9S8lVk_ws8TxDlX9uj4ymolveUXDvv6X7jjABHihHaI3JLCnEKY9tSbl2UODdyhu5jGwebVjpzdMOoDpmSynlYlDJWGDNlBO3JyYu0hl0zTT9uDqneUMi3S2k9gMgL9TxIG

College student from White Plains gets meningitis in Spain
By MELISSA KLEIN
THE JOURNAL NEWS

All signs pointed to a good experience for Mayra Rodriguez as she set out this January on her semester abroad in Spain.

Her Spanish was good enough to get her into the regular classes at the University of Salamanca, northwest of Madrid, and she was volunteering to teach English at a local elementary school.

"Everything we heard was happiness," said her mother, Irma Rodriguez of White Plains.

In a matter of hours, that unraveled. Mayra called her mother three weeks ago to say she had a horrible headache. Twelve hours later, at 4 a.m., her parents received a call that Mayra, 20, was in the hospital.

Irma and Ramiro Rodriguez rushed to Spain. When they arrived, their daughter was in a coma and they were told she had bacterial meningitis.

Mayra, a junior at Binghamton University, has since made some improvement, and her mother said she can move around in bed and is able to eat a bit of food.

"It's telling you that it's hope," her mother said this week in a telephone interview from Spain. "When we came, they told us there is no hope."

As of yesterday, Mayra was still not talking and was not aware of what was going on around her, Rodriguez said.

The road ahead for Mayra will likely be a lengthy one. As her parents this week were making arrangements to have her flown back to New York on an air ambulance, a family friend in White Plains was working to set up a nonprofit fund to help defray medical expenses.

Mayra became sick despite having been vaccinated against meningitis.

College freshmen living in dormitories are at higher risk of contracting meningococcal disease, which can cause meningitis. New York state law requires colleges to inform students and parents about the benefits of the meningitis vaccine, but does not require that students take it.

Rodriguez said her daughter had been vaccinated twice - once before attending a summer program at a California college while she was still in high school and again before she started college.

The vaccine offers protection against most, but not all, strains of meningococcal disease.

Meningitis is an infection in the fluid that surrounds the brain and is treated with antibiotics.

"It's one of those infections that prior to antibiotics was 100 percent fatal," said Dr. Gary Wormser, chief of infectious diseases at Westchester Medical Center and New York Medical College, both in Valhalla. "Now with antibiotics, the majority are not fatal."

The consequences of an infection can be devastating, though, sometimes leading to amputation because of gangrene in the extremities. Wormser said Mayra was past the point where gangrene would be a concern.

"I wouldn't even make a guess as to how much she could improve," he said. "It could be quite significantly."

Mayra went to Spain in early January for a study abroad program run by another school in the state university system, SUNY Cortland.

Students live with host families in Salamanca and can take special classes for foreigners. Mayra qualified, though, to enroll in the University of Salamanca.

"Her Spanish is good, and then she's an excellent student on top of that," said Katharine Krebs, director of international education at Binghamton University, where Mayra is majoring in philosophy, politics and law.

When Mayra became ill Jan. 26, Krebs, who speaks Spanish, flew to Spain and spent a week there to offer support.

Krebs said every student in the study abroad program was required to have health insurance to cover them overseas as well as a policy for medical evacuation.

Mayra's parents, who also speak Spanish, were keeping a 24-hour vigil at their daughter's bedside. Irma Rodriguez said that the hospital was understaffed, and that they never deal with the same doctor twice.

Rodriguez has a part-time catering business and works for the Women's Enterprise Development Center in White Plains. Her husband works in construction.

Penny Judelson of White Plains has set up a nonprofit foundation to help defray the family's expenses. She said White Plains lawyer Theresa Girolomo donated her services to help set up the fund.

Judelson's daughter, Amanda, is a close friend of Mayra's. Judelson said Mayra was an accomplished violinist and artist who once worked for a domestic violence program in White Plains and as a volunteer at White Plains Hospital Center.

"This child is just a gift," she said.