Newspaper Article: March 26th, 2007

Here is the newest article that was run on the front page of The Journal News in White Plains:

White Plains woman, 20, recovers from meningitis
By MELISSA KLEIN
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: March 26, 2007)


NEW YORK - Mayra Rodriguez bopped her head to the 1980s pop tune "Take On Me," singing along in key and hitting the high notes.

"Wow, Mayra," said her physical therapist, Annie Matthews, who was working Mayra's iPod. "Wow, you've surprised me on that one."

A little while later, Rodriguez and Matthews tossed a ball back and forth. It was the first time since Rodriguez, a 20-year-old White Plains college student, entered the rehabilitation unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan four weeks ago that she was able to catch the ball.

"Just putting the sequence of throwing it up in the air and her mind telling her body to catch the ball, that's a pretty complex task," Matthews said last week. "For her to do that is a step in the right direction."

At the beginning of January, Mayra (pronounced Myra) Rodriguez was a college junior on a semester abroad. Now, after surviving bacterial meningitis, she is relearning the most basic of tasks from walking to carrying on a conversation to playing catch.

"Every day we see a lot more progress," said her doctor, Anne-Felicia Ambrose, a rehabilitation medicine specialist at Mount Sinai.

Rodriguez, a junior at Binghamton University, SUNY, became sick soon after the start of the study abroad program in Salamanca, Spain. She complained of a terrible headache, stiff neck and sore throat and hours later was in a hospital where her condition was diagnosed as bacterial meningitis. She lapsed into a coma, and her parents, who had flown from New York, stayed by her bed around the clock.

Rodriguez was able to return to New York by air ambulance on Feb. 20 and was taken directly to New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan. She was transferred Feb. 26 to Mount Sinai.

Ambrose said Rodriguez was still recovering from the effects of the meningitis, an infection in the meninges or membrane around the brain. She said Rodriguez still has some inflammation and fluid buildup in her brain and was on medications to prevent seizures, all of which were limiting her abilities.

Meningitis can also result in hearing and vision loss, and although Rodriguez hasn't been tested, it seems as if both senses are intact, Ambrose said.

"When she sings, she hears the music," Ambrose said. "She sings along with it in time and she hits all the right notes."

Ambrose said Rodriguez's intelligence and her supportive family would be key factors in her recovery.

"The hope is that she will make a good recovery," she said. "How complete that's going to be, it's difficult to say at this time."

Rodriguez was majoring in philosophy, politics and law at Binghamton and spoke Spanish well enough to enroll in the regular classes at University of Salamanca.

"We just want her to be Mayra again," said her mother, Irma Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has made great strides in three weeks. When she came to Mount Sinai, she could not walk and was not communicating.

Now, she climbs stairs and will repeat words and phrases, in English and in Spanish, as if a toddler learning to speak.

"Let's do the puzzle," she repeated after Matthews said the phrase in their therapy session.

Rodriguez has particularly bonded with Matthews, a college student doing an internship in physical therapy who is only a few years older.

"I was the only one who knew how to work the iPod at first," Matthews said.

Irma Rodriguez said her daughter has not really had spontaneous conversations, but did ask for her boyfriend recently. Irma Rodriguez said that when she had Mayra speak to the boyfriend on the phone, her daughter was all smiles and she was able to tell him, "I love you, too."

Irma Rodriguez and her husband, Ramiro, take turns spending the night with Mayra, not wanting to leave her alone. They also have a younger daughter, Marianna, 12.

Neither has been able to work since Rodriguez became ill. Irma Rodriguez, a part-time caterer, works at the Women's Enterprise Development Center in White Plains, and her husband works in construction.

The family's insurance will pay for just 30 days of rehabilitation for Rodriguez, and Irma Rodriguez recently applied to get her daughter Medicaid coverage.

Meanwhile, about $23,000 has been raised to help defray the family's expenses.

Penny Judelson, a White Plains resident whose daughter Amanda is a close friend of Rodriguez's, started the fund and has been asking local businesses for donations.

Judelson said students at her daughter's school, the University of Pennsylvania, and at Binghamton have raised money. A bake sale at the Rodriguez's church, St. Bernard's in White Plains, brought in about $2,400.

Strangers who have heard about Maya Rodriguez have even looked up Judelson's phone number and called, offering to donate money.

Irma Rodriguez said she was grateful for all the support, but accepting help was a strange feeling. She and her husband came to the United States from Mexico in 1981 and became citizens. She said they have never asked for assistance.

"We believe that whatever you want in life you have to work it out," she said. "That's the way we teach the girls."

Mayra Rodriguez has been giving back to the community since she was in elementary school and volunteered to read to homeless children. Later, she volunteered at White Plains Hospital Center in a program for pregnant teens. She had a summer job as a translator in a program for victims of domestic violence.

Even though she had been in Spain just three weeks before becoming ill, she volunteered to teach English at a grade school there. Sixty school children came to the hospital to visit her.

Rodriguez's artwork hangs in her hospital room and her violin sits by her bed. Her violin teacher from White Plains came to Mount Sinai to visit and give her a lesson.

"Everything now is the first time," her mother said. "It was like the first class she had when she was 5."

While Rodriguez was an accomplished violinist and sang in the choir at White Plains High School, her mother said she was never really aware of her daughter's beautiful voice until now.

"We didn't know that she sings," she said.

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