A historia das duas garotas

Essa semana entrei de ferias do meu trabalho, porque as aulas estao quase acabando e entao o ultimo jornal do semestre ja foi publicado. 

Foram nesses ultimos dias que eu escrevi duas das historias mais interessantes que encontrei nesse semestre. O que prova que, mesmo trabalhando num jornal de universidade, quando voce tem que escrever apenas coisas relacionadas aos alunos e professores, eh possivel encontrar bons casos.

Essa historia surgiu assim. Ouvimos falar de uma aluna que estava na Espanha e sofreu um acidente, caindo do quarto andar de um predio. Dai passei por mil pessoas ateh chegar na roomate dela, e ela me contou toda a historia. Na primeira noite na Espanha essa menina estava na sacada, quando de repente, desapareceu. Ninguem sabe o que aconteceu, soh que encontraram ela caida no chao, inconsciente. Ela ficou super mal e quando finalmente foi transferida pra tratamento nos USA, foi para um hospital em Nebraska. Agora ela esta reaprendendo a andar e a falar. 

Ao mesmo tempo eu comecei outra historia, de uma ex-aluna da PSU, que teve um derrame ha uns meses. E ela, coincidentemente, foi parar nesse mesmo hospital em Nebraska. Quer dizer, as duas gurias eram de Pittsburg, e passaram por situacoes semelhantes de quase morte esse ano. E agora, mesmo sem se conhecerem, elas estao reaprendendo a fazer coisas basicas no mesmo hospital, em outro Estado. Enquanto isso, os amigos delas aqui estao organizando eventos pra arrecadar dinheiro pra ajudar as duas no tratamento. Muita coincidencia. 

Coloquei a historia aqui, se alguem tiver um tempo (porque esta comprida) e quiser ler.

Hope for Alison and Lauren

Pittsburg community organized two fundraisers to help Alison Short, PSU alumni who had a stroke, and Lauren Renfrow, PSU student who fell from a balcony in Spain

Val Vita

Alison Short Wilson, a PSU alumna, was in a church, in Kansas City, in the evening of March 11, when she start feeling sick to her stomach. That was the first symptom that something wasn’t right.

Her husband, Chris Wilson, also a PSU alumni, says that in that same night, Short started vomiting and feeling dizzy, and she was talking a bit differently.

He thought about calling 911, but she didn’t want it, and went to bed saying she would feel better in the morning.

Wilson called 911 at midnight after reading the symptoms of stroke on a website. And realizing she was showing all of them.

“Alison was a healthy 31 year old with no family history that would give us cause to fear a stroke,” Wilson said.

Short had a series of massive strokes, which affected her ability to speak and move her arms and legs.

“The fact that she's young and healthy give us hope,” Wilson said. “Even after the stroke, she has more living brain cells than someone twice her age.”

  

Short was sedated for a couple days after the stroke, but has been awake for most of this. She is aware of all that's happening around her, according to her husband. She's on a feeding tube still and she cannot move her arms and legs much at all.

After two weeks of treatment in KC, Short was transferred to a long-term acute care hospital (LTACH) in Lincoln, Neb., called Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. This hospital, according to Wilson, is one of the best in the country, specifically for helping young people with brain injuries.

Short is getting about three hours of therapy per day, including physical, occupational and speech therapy.

“Every day she makes any kind of progress is a day that we have hope that it will continue,” Wilson said. “We certainly have a long way to go. But the brain is pretty incredible in that it has an amazing ability to relearn things and find new ways to make connections. But that takes time. We've been told that it's a marathon, not a sprint, so we're in it for the long-haul.”

Short is a long time resident of Pittsburg, but she was born in Springfield, Mo.. She studied at St. Mary’s Colgan and graduated at Pittsburg High School in 1999. She was a communication major and a Collegio editor.

She fell in love with Wilson, who was a commercial graphics student, when they were at PSU.

“We had a lot of ‘firsts’ in Pittsburg,” Wilson said. “First date, first kiss, first place together.”

They got married in August 2004, and after that, Wilson says, they’ve traveled a lot. One of Short’s dreams, he says, is traveling to Europe.

Before the stroke, she was working as care coordinator for MetroCare, in Kansas City, where she and Wilson lived. Even though she was living in KC for a while, she still has a lot of friends in Pittsburg.

One of them, Beth Kimzey, says she is a friend of hers since Elementary School.

It was Kimzey who decided to organize a fundraiser to help with Short’s medical expenses.

“Being a nurse myself, I am very aware of the cost of medical care and especially a specialize rehabilitation hospital such as the one Alison is at right now,” said Kimzey, who graduated in nursing from PSU in 2004.

The fundraiser to help Alison Short will be on Sunday, May 6th, from 11:30am to 2:30pm, at Lincoln Center (710 W. 9th Street, Pittsburg). There’s going to be barbecue, hotdogs, chips and dessert. The cost is $5.

 Kimzey says that Short, as a communications major, was an excellent writer, loved to read and had a gift for communicating.

“We are so excited that she is starting to make sounds again, while trying to talk again, because we can't wait to hear that voice,” Kimzey said.

Short is having the company of her family and husband while she’s recovering at the Maddona Hospital. Just a few bedrooms away where she is staying, there’s another PSU student learning again how to do simple things like walk and speak.

Short’s family probably doesn’t even know that, and Short doesn’t know this girl. But their two stories are similar. Both lives changed this year after tragic accidents that could have cost their lives.

This other girl is Lauren Renfrow and her story is as sad as Short’s. Who tells this story is Melissa Archuleta, her roommate.

She says she had talked to Renfrow, one day before Renfrow arrive in Spain in January this year.

  

“I was asking what she and her friend would do in Spain,” said Archuleta, senior in management. “And we said we would Skype.”

On the morning of Saturday, January 7, Archuleta IPhone buzzed. It was a message from the girl who Renfrow went visit in Spain, saying that Renfrow had fell from the 4th floor of a building.

“I just couldn’t believe that,” Archuleta said. “I didn’t know what to think. And there was nothing I could do from here, it was really hard.”

Archuleta says Renfrow went to Spain during Christmas Break. She was supposed to stay there for two weeks, but the accident happened on her first night there.

“She was hanging out in the apartment with two friends, and she was outside in the balcony admiring the view,” Archuleta said. “The next thing they know she was gone.”

Nobody knows for sure what happened. Archuleta she could have slipped or something. Since she was gone, Renfrow’s friends start looking for her and decided to go outside. Renfrow was there on the floor, unconscious. 

“They took her to the hospital,” Archuleta said. “She was breathing, she was alive, but they weren’t sure what happened. The doctors said she had a really bad trauma, and that she wasn’t going to live.”

Renfrow was kept in induced coma for seven weeks in a hospital in Spain. Her mom, Rhonda Renfrow, says that she was shocked when she received a call from her daughter’s friend telling her what happened.

“My first thought was that I had to get to her,” Rhonda said. “I took a plane on the very next day.”

Renfrow’s dad and brother went to Spain only a few days later., because her brother didn’t even have a passport. The family stayed in the country for the seven weeks that the girl was in coma. Their parents had to stop working for all this time.

When Renfrow finally woke up, she flew back to United Stated in an emergency ambulance. After staying in a hospital in Kansas City for a few weeks, in March, she went to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, in Lincoln, Neb., where she has been since then.

Archuleta visited her a few weeks ago.

 “She saw me and smiled a little bit,” Archuleta said. “She still has memory, although they don’t know as far it can goes. But we gave her a photo of all her friends and she kissed the picture. It was so sweet to see that she recognizes them.”

Renfrow is now having help of speak and physic therapist, and is writing and started talking some words. Rhonda and Renfrow’s brother are in Nebraska too. Her dad went back to work, and travel there one a week.

According to Rhonda, her daughter will need to stay in Nebraska until June. After that, she’ll probably need more therapy in another facility.

“But she’s progressing,” Rhonda said. “It’s a slow process. You’ve got to be patient with brain healing.”

Renfrow was a marketing major, and a part of graphics arts club and marketing association. Since she was a cross-country runner, their friends decided to organize a 5K to help her with all the surgeries she still have to do.

The fundraiser to help Lauren Renfrow will be on Saturday, May 5^th, at the Wilderness Park (907 W. McKay, Frontenac, KS) Registration starts at 8am and the race starts at 9am. The cost is $17 with the online registration (www.love4lauren.com).

Archuleta says they will be accepting any kind of donation during the event to help with Renfrow’s surgeries. Donations can also be made at the university bank, under Lauren Renfrow Medical Fund.

Rhonda says she is really proud about what her daughter’s friends are doing. 

“It means a lot to our family,” Rhonda Said. “Lauren can’t understand what people are doing for her right now, but one day she will, and I’m sure she will be proud too.”

The same will probably happen to Short, when she recovers. For now, Renfrow and Short are spending their days relearning basic things with the help, love and support of their families and friends.

Hopefully, they will walk, talk and laugh again. Someday, who knows, they will read this story.

http://psucollegio.com/2012/05/hope-for-alison-and-lauren/