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She is a typical Sydney socialite-working hard, playing hard, and having a line of shoes to match it. Then a trip to Africa made Stephanie Rodriguez fight for her life-in the end, she lost her feet.

Stephanie Rodriguez was told that unless she gave up her dead feet, she would never walk again. Image credit: Tim Bauer. Michelle Dubé's hair and makeup

They are an eye-catching pair of shoes, but a little intimidating: 12 cm high Chanel high heels, made of blue suede and fire engine red leather, with matching piping. There is almost no wear after 14 years, and it is clear that these high heels have been well taken care of and thoroughly loved.

When I observed their owner, Stephenie Rodriguez, her eyes were a little blinded, and she exhaled a thoughtful "Oh, yes." Her desire is understandable. Six months ago, the Sydney native who was born in the United States had her feet amputated and became the first woman in Australia to have bilateral osseointegrative implants and mechanical feet implanted above the ankle joint.

The children in her apartment building called her "Ms. Robot"-she didn't mind at all. "I just smiled and showed them my feet."

After Nigeria was bitten by a mosquito that caused her to contract cerebral malaria, this drastic operation was the last chapter of an 18-month battle to save her life. The single mother, former social web star, and digital entrepreneur eventually struggled with severe neurological complications in a Boston hospital, where she had only a 2% chance of survival. At some stage, one of her necrotic, black toes fell off her hand. "It's terrible, absolutely terrible. It's totally unimaginable," she said of that moment. "I can't believe what I saw."

In the end, Australian professor Munjed Al Muderis was an Iraqi refugee. He became the pioneer of a new generation of robotic limbs. He persuaded her that giving up her dead feet was the only chance for her to stand up and walk again. "It's weird, but I had to cut off my feet to walk again," Rodriguez said bluntly.

After 36 operations and 368 hospital nights, including countless hours of painful physiotherapy and pulsed radiofrequency treatment of nerve endings, the 52-year-old is in good health. She put what she called "Chanel" in front of mine. . They are the last of 400 pairs of equally exquisite footwear series launched by Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik, Dior and Jimmy Choo, which appeared in her wardrobe in the style of Carrie Bradshaw not long ago. "Before I put on a pair of killer high heels, I never really felt'good to wear'; the higher the better. That's the kind of girl I used to...still," Rodriguez explained. "They were all sent by my ex-husband...I guess he thinks I won't need them anymore."

But can't Chanel? "No, they are my first Mother's Day gift. I can't be separated from them."

We sat on a black leather sofa in her elegant apartment on the 42nd floor of a modern complex in the Sydney CBD. On one wall hangs artwork by her friend Athena "X" Levendi, who was the star of the TV show "The Real Housewives of Sydney". "It tells me about transformation," Rodriguez said of the painting, which depicts the different stages of the human soul. Her 15-year-old son, Constantine, was sitting nearby with headphones. In the corner, a space-age massage chair occasionally talked to us. "Oh, I call her Alice, ignore her," Rodriguez said, the voice response lounge provides service.

"It's weird, but I had to chop off my feet to walk again."

A week ago, Rodriguez reached one of her greatest milestones after amputation, and learned how to walk with a pair of relatively moderate 4 cm kittens. Today, she wore a pair of low-waisted leopard-print wedges walking around the apartment, obviously very relaxed. Protruding below her calf is a high-strength titanium rod fused into her bones. Connected to each rod by an Allen key are two articulated prosthetic feet, which look more like metal paddles. On top of these, Rodriguez slipped a pair of flesh-colored silicone "sleeves" with artificial toes and nails.

I remembered the last time I saw her, it was more than ten years ago. At that time, she was a blond bombshell, wearing black tights and a top with a bra exposed, striding into the crowded Carnival party in Sydney Taylor Square-all legs, lips and chest. She even beats the most shameless drag queen. Today, she joked about a recent trip to a beauty salon: "I am the only woman I know who can perform two operations in different treatment rooms at the same time: one is wax, the other is pedicure!"

Rodriguez shared her story with me, hoping that she can inspire those facing unimaginable adversity. She is writing a book about her ordeal and hopes to join the speaker circuit. One of her main messages is to never take good luck for granted: "It may be lost between a dime." She knows this.

Rodriguez participated in the carnival in 2010. Image source: Andrew Hornery

As three kids who grew up in Albany and Virginia Beach in upstate New York, Stephanie Rodriguez always feels different. "There is a reason. At the age of 16, I found out that I was a child-loving child," she said. "My mother had a relationship with a colleague who turned out to be Puerto Rican, which explains why I look different from my very beautiful siblings. I am brown with big eyes, big nose and lips."

Rodriguez was very angry with her mother for hiding her parent-child relationship. She moved out of the house and moved to her own apartment a few hours' drive away. She went to school during the day and worked as a waitress at night. "Still surprised me! I think I am a very independent child, but I am also very motivated academically. I really like school and know that it is the key to continuing my life." She hired one Private detectives tracked down her biological father and eventually met him when she was in her 20s and changed her surname after getting close. (He died in 2008.)

Rodriguez hoped to get a scholarship from a prestigious Ivy League university and dreamed of becoming a marine biologist, but after discovering that she "has digital dyslexia", she moved to the unhealthy West Virginia Tech University, where she studied for a degree in business. During the first Internet boom in the United States, she held various marketing roles, and then she went to Washington, DC, and then to California. During a trip to Las Vegas in the mid-1990s, while spending a night with a man she "didn't really like", she met by chance and eventually brought her to Sydney.

"When I was playing a slot machine in Vegas, a girl with an Australian accent came up and said her brother-in-law wanted to see me," she said. "He is a lovely young man with Hugh Grant hair and boys, tortoiseshell glasses and that accent."

This lovely young man was a budding ear, nose and throat expert, Michael Zakaria, who later became one of Sydney's most outstanding plastic surgeons. "He invited me to lunch and we talked a lot. About what we want in life...our ambitions, everything. Finally I also stayed for dinner and met his family. When I left When we kissed, he looked into my eyes and said: "We will tell an interesting story at the wedding. ""

Two years later, they did it.

Rodriguez moved to Australia in 1997 to work with Zacharia, but the limited local career opportunities mean that she continues to work in the United States and regularly travels to Miami, where she is responsible for the business development of Latin music MP3 services. It was here that she met the owner of a luxury lifestyle magazine called Ocean Drive.

"It's very fascinating, I can see the potential," she said. Rodriguez persuaded the store owner to allow her to launch it in Australia, which she did in 2001, and in the process plunged headlong into the exciting social scene in Sydney. "I know we must cause a sensation," she told me. She did it and threw a party for 1,500 Sydney movers and swingers in the ballroom of the then-new Westin Martin Place Hotel, as well as disco podium dancers, flamethrowers and pantomime artists (I know ;I was there).

Described on social pages as "perennial party girls", "self-styled IT girls" and "Ocean Drive supremo", Rodriguez was also accused of participating in "as many A-list style envelope openings as possible." She doesn't care at all; always ambitious, she knows the marketing potential and plays her role, wearing a denim jacket for lunch in a trendy Sydney restaurant with a diamond-patterned Ocean Drive on the back.

Zacharias' marriage ended after the 2002 Melbourne Cup, and Rodriguez has been working there. With their first child, she miscarried. "The pressure of our respective professions means that we have become alienated," she said. Nothing was lost; she transformed the diamond on the engagement ring into a pair of earrings and gave it to her current ex-husband's niece.

Although her magazine gave readers a glimpse of the world of ultra-fashionable home furnishings, luxury fashion, and luxury cars a few years before the emergence of social media, it barely broke even. In 2004, Rodriguez said she had “no choice” but Can kill it and leave. Because of her non-traditional methods, she is still a regular member of the gossip page, which includes donating her 12 eggs to a childless woman she met at a cocktail party as an act of "paying forward". Her donated son is now attending the same school as Constantine, who was born in Rodriguez in 2006 and her second husband, real estate developer Paul De Matisse. Seven years later, the family moved to Dematis’ hometown of Canberra. The marriage ended in 2018; Rodriguez said it was still too painful to talk about it, but she still "grateful forever" Dematis for her son. Her beloved Constantine.

Her Chanel high-heeled shoes are the last of 400 pairs of series. Credit: Tim Bower

The newly single Rodriguez buried herself in the startup she launched in 2017 called WanderSafe, a high-tech key ring and personal security app that, when activated, will Remind the contact of the problem and share the user's GPS location. In April 2019, at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society held in Geneva, she ushered in the first major opportunity to bring it to the market. At the meeting, she talked about plans to promote it globally. The following month, Frontier magazine named it the best new travel accessory at the Singapore trade show. Buzz is finally established.

In August, she flew to California to participate in her first Hive Global Leaders Summit, an international forum for entrepreneurs to share ideas and seek business opportunities. She was invited to speak at Hive forums in Africa and India and immediately agreed.

Just a few weeks ago, she won the raffle at the local bar Fenway Public House in Woden, a suburb of Canberra. Her prize was that the two went to Boston to watch a baseball game at the famous Fenway Park. She was originally scheduled to leave on September 26, 2019, only 24 hours before returning home from her original trip to Africa and India. "Of course, this is an urgent change, but I have been doing things like this for many years, jet lag is second nature to me," she said. This will not be a problem; the goddess of luck is shining.

In Lagos, Nigeria, Rodriguez attended the Hive event on September 11 and gave a speech at a gathering of tourism executives a few days later. "The organizer asked me to go out and take a photo with the representatives. They have drones to shoot B-roll [extra shots] and VOX pop music. It was shot by a dead pool. It was sunset. I believed mine at the time. The left ankle was bitten by mosquitoes three times," she said. She applied insect repellent to herself and was aware of the diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, but chose not to take any anti-malaria drugs. "I have had a bad reaction to someone before," she said. "I can't slow down."

When she flew to India the next day, she largely forgot about the bite, where she spoke at the New Delhi Women's Technology event of the Australian High Commission. On September 23, she flew back to Australia. Exhausted but adrenaline soaring, she is excited about the next big adventure, one will start the next day: full payment, a four-day trip to Boston, she took her best friend Liz Bis," Just like my little sister, a funny and firm friend."

"I remember when I picked her up, she was a little nervous, full of energy and excitement," recalled the prime minister and the administrative assistant to the cabinet office Bis. "Of course I wouldn't be like in the 16-hour flight, but she was really talkative. Looking back, she did drink 500 cups of coffee, but she always did. She had a cold on the plane to the United States, I took cold medicine and flu pills. I knew her candle was burning at both ends."

Rodriguez attributed her cold to "complicated jet lag...I don't want Liz to be frustrated, she is very happy to participate in this trip, this is her first time to the United States". They arrived in Boston on the evening of September 26 and began a walking tour of Harvard the next day. Rodriguez arranged a working lunch and a podcast interview. That night, the two went to Fenway Park to watch the Baltimore Orioles baseball team and the Boston Red Sox game. "Liz got a big foam hand and she had a lot of fun," Rodriguez said.

Stephanie Rodriguez (Stephenie Rodriguez) and her best friend Liz Beath (Liz Beath) fell on the Boston baseball field due to infection two days before. Image Credit: Stephenie Rodriguez (Stephenie Rodriguez)

The next day, they went out for lunch. Feeling tired, Rodriguez chose to take a nap. "It's totally out of date for me," she said. On the last night in Boston, she decided to dine in the hotel lobby bar instead of going out. Also extremely unusual.

September 29th is their last day in Boston, during which time they will buy shoes and then head to the airport. Bis began to worry about her friend during a visit to Harvard, when Rodriguez "had a high fever and was visibly sweating" and noticed during their shopping trip that her friend was grumpy and looked uncomfortable. "I suggested that she go to the doctor, but she said we only have a few days and it's not worth waiting in the hospital." Rodriguez refused another call to see the doctor, but agreed to go to the airport earlier.

"She was very slow through security, and she was groping for her luggage," Bis recalled. "The people behind us became more and more impatient. We finally went to the lounge and watched our luggage board the plane. I tried to get her something to eat and drink, but she was not interested. I went to the bar to get more. Lots of water. Before I came back, a man came over and said to me, "Your friend has something serious. ""

Bis rushed back, trying to get Rodriguez to drink. "It dripped from in front of her. I remember when she looked up at me, her eyes were the most frightened. It was as if she wanted to say, "Help me," but couldn't say it. She was incoherent.

I screamed, "Someone helps me, I need a doctor!" Fortunately, there were three people in that lounge. "

They moved Rodriguez to the carpet. Putting her in the recovery position, they checked her vital signs and cleared her airway, initially suspecting she had a stroke. A few minutes later, ambulance personnel and officials from the Sheriff’s Department arrived. Rodriguez, who was vomiting, was tied to a stretcher and quickly passed through the crowded terminal.

Frightened, Bis grabbed their passports, backpacks and shopping bags and tried desperately to keep up. When they wandered through the maze of passages and tunnels to the ambulance waiting on the tarmac, her heart was beating. . The alarm sounded and the lights flickered, and she was frightened at a loss. "They said we were going to Massachusetts General Hospital. It felt like I was watching a scene where I was not actually involved. When we arrived at the hospital, they asked me a million questions... Did she take any medications? . I told them cold medicine and flu pills. They ruled out allergic reactions."

The doctor and nurse came down. Beath recalled counting 16 people; they drew blood, checked Rodriguez's vital signs, and cut off her clothes. In a mess, Bees called her mother in Canberra, and then her fiance, attorney Chase Deans. Rodriguez's ex-husbands Paul Dermatis and Michael Zacharia, her general practitioner Zac Turner and her other close girlfriend Fiona O'Donnell were quickly notified.

Rodriguez's trips in Africa and India are also in Bis's phone. She scrolls through her Instagram feed with the medical team for clues. Turner was on his way to Monte Carlo for a medical conference when he got the news. In his early medical career, he studied infectious diseases, and as one of WanderSafe investors, he knew that Rodriguez had just traveled to Africa and India. Sending a text message from his plane seat, he sowed the seeds that she might be carrying malaria. He suggested that she receive treatment with the relatively new drug artesunate. It is not widely known in the United States, where malaria is less common, and at that stage, it has not been approved for use there (next year, 2020).

Twenty hours later, an infectious disease expert confirmed Turner's suspicions. Rodriguez was in a coma at this time and was infected with cerebral malaria.

Stephanie Rodriguez was in Lagos in 2019, where she believed she was bitten by a mosquito and contracted malaria. Image source: Courtesy of Stephanie Rodriguez

Distraught, Bis checked into a hotel next to the hospital, and returned to Rodriguez's room to wait. The next day, a counselor told her that Rodriguez's condition was getting worse and asked her to consider whether her friend should be cremated, and provided a brochure for the local crematorium. Or maybe she wants to arrange the return of her body to Australia? "I was thinking,'What the hell is it?' I don't even want to think about that," Bis said, her voice broken when she relived the horror.

Friends and family began to fly in, including Deans, O'Donnell and De Matisse, the latter with Rodriguez's 13-year-old son. "Constantine is the most important thing in the world for Stephanie," said Canberra childcare entrepreneur O'Donnell. "The doctor thought that letting him there might trigger a certain reaction, a reaction. But this is a big risk, and we are looking for miracles.

Rodriguez was intubated in Boston. When they took out the tube, her first sentence was: "Who... has malaria?" Image source: Courtesy of Stephenie Rodriguez

She has so many machines, monitors, pipes and cables connected everywhere. She was unrecognizable and unresponsive. I can't believe that our beautiful and energetic Stephanie is the one lying on that bed. "Doctors in Boston have obtained approval from the U.S. authorities to try artesunate, and a batch from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Because of the rapid death of the parasite, patients with cerebral malaria rarely leave the bite too much. Far, but now it has been more than two weeks since Rodriguez was bitten, and she has traveled about 40,000 kilometers across four continents. When Artesunate attacked the parasite, she fell into severe septic shock and organ failure.

At a critical moment of life and death, doctors said they can do one more thing: increase vasopressors, which can cause vasoconstriction in patients with severe hypotension. In Rodriguez's case, the ascension was extreme, increasing blood flow to her vital organs - and away from her limbs. "This is the last trick in the bag. They warned my family that if I survived, there would be collateral damage. The vasopressor took away my feet and hands, the things farthest from my heart, blood and Like frostbite, areas without blood and oxygen begin to die," Rodriguez said, clinically detached. "My family begs them to do everything they can to save my life. The injury to my feet and hands did not come from cerebral malaria: it came from the treatment of severe septic shock."

Regardless of everything, it worked. Rodriguez woke up from a coma on October 9, 2019. She was still intubated, but she recalled being unable to move anything except her face and mouth. Two days later, when they took out the tube, her first sentence was: "Who... has malaria?"

Rodriguez and her 15-year-old son Constantine returned to Australia. When the malaria infection spread in Boston, Constantine flew to the United States to accompany her by her bed. Image source: Courtesy of Stephanie Rodriguez

On October 14, Rodriguez was transferred from the intensive care unit, when her Australian travel insurance company insisted on airlifting her back to the Australian hospital. "So they can stop the meter from running," she said dryly. A few weeks later, she flew back to Sydney and was transferred to Canberra Hospital by ambulance. Here, she was told that she needed to amputate her legs above the knees and a few fingers. "But I can still feel my arches and toes, even if my toes change from purple to black, I can't feel them," she said. "I resisted. I said,'We don't know what will not heal, I would rather wait."

The next day, Fiona O'Donnell went to see a doctor and listened to the doctor's advice. When the doctor left, she told Rodriguez: "Self-discharge, baby! I'll take you to Sydney for a second opinion." That afternoon, O'Donnell drove her Porsche Macan and put her friend and wheelchair on it. The car drove onto the "Selma and Louis style" federal highway.

Life-saving drugs caused necrosis in her hands and feet. Image source: Courtesy of Stephenie Rodriguez

Rodriguez will spend most of 2020 in four different hospitals in Sydney, receiving treatment from various doctors and experts to save her dying hands and feet. This includes multiple skin grafts, heel "flap surgery", and amputation of the remaining toes. She underwent a total of 28 foot surgeries, including stem cell therapy and peptide injections to "regenerate" her flesh, as well as endless battles in a hyperbaric chamber.

At the same time, she underwent surgery on her right hand to remove the dead bones in the index finger and the muscles between the thumb and index finger, and fuse the thumb in place. Since then, her hand has recovered almost all functions, although it carries the indelible scars of her suffering. Although her index finger is now slightly shorter, it is intact.

However, as of February this year, she still had problems with her feet. In the wheelchair, she was too painful to stand, and the skin around the crying heel had not yet closed. A new set of MRI scans showed bad news: her heel bone is about to die. "The body doesn't like dead things and tries to get rid of them naturally, like fragments," she said. "I have these open wounds for a year because my body is repelling my bones."

Rodriguez has now been accepted into the National Disability Insurance Plan. The application requires her to express her goals. "It's easy: walk independently again," she said. The second question is to ask who will help her achieve this goal.

Rodriguez was amputated after his toe was amputated in Sydney. Image source: Courtesy of Stephanie Rodriguez

This is a long shot, but Rodriguez wrote about Professor Munjed Al Muderis, who is Australia’s Person of the Year in 2020 and a world leader in percutaneous osseointegration technology in Sydney, developing robotic prostheses for amputees, aiming to get as close as possible Human Anatomy. Coincidentally, Rodriguez heard the professor’s speech in the 2015 TEDx Sydney lecture, when he shared that he fled Saddam Hussein after refusing to cut off the ears of deserters from the army. s story. Inspired, Rodriguez has already established contact with him on social media.

"I cried when I got home from that date. That's not what I wanted to hear."

"Maybe he can give me a bionic toe?" Rodriguez recalled her thoughts before the first consultation. Al Muderis told her that there is no need to worry about toes, her feet are the real problem. "If I wanted to get up from the wheelchair and walk again, I would have to exchange my dead, sore feet for some bionic feet," she recalled. "I cried when I got home from that date. That's not what I wanted to hear."

Al Muderis said he soon persuaded his patients. "Stephanie is a reasonable person. Although her limbs are not completely dead, she has been partially amputated," he told me. "Her feet have become annoying, painful and no longer functioning. It is possible to spread the infection further," he said. "We had a very open and frank discussion about her actual situation, her management choices and what kind of life she wants."

Finally accepted the inevitable. On March 31 this year, Rodriguez underwent a double-foot amputation. A new titanium rod was inserted into her shin bone. She stayed in the hospital for three weeks, and then spent another eight weeks learning how to walk with a physical therapist. In the process, she discovered her new focus: "In my hips."

Rodriguez learned to bear weight two weeks after losing his feet. Image source: Courtesy of Stephanie Rodriguez

Since then, Rodriguez has spent at least three days a week with a physical therapist, slowly but surely rebuilding her body. She showed me how her articulated ankle and foot mechanism rotates according to the type of shoe she wants to wear, taking a huge leap forward from her less flexible "beginner" foot, which is basically rigid The L-shaped appendage forced her to walk "like a tin soldier." She stood up to demonstrate her ability to rock her feet back and forth, bend her knees, and activate her new ankles. I held my breath for an instant.

"Stephanie doesn't want to run a marathon, she just wants to go back to her previous state, get on the plane, walk and dance."

With blond hair on her face like Marilyn Monroe, with skillful makeup, the black dress sets off her toned figure, as flawless as when I first met her. "Thanks to Pilates and my physical therapist," she said. "After 18 months in a wheelchair, I had to rebuild my body and regain strength."

One of the physical therapists, Zac Moukaddem, was impressed by her professional ethics. "Her determination is taking it to the next level," he told me. "Everyone has different goals. Some people just want to reach a certain point, nothing more. Stephanie doesn't want to run a marathon, she just wants to go back to her previous state, flying, walking and dancing... But she is just like a disability Olympic athletes are as determined to get there."

Looking at her and thinking about how huge and irreversible changes have taken place in her life, I can't help but wonder if she regrets not taking anti-malaria drugs before her fateful trip to Nigeria. She insisted that it might not make any difference. In Boston, she was told that in her case, malaria drugs might not be enough. "I have been to Africa before and know that there is malaria there, but I calculated that my risk is very low and I took preventive measures by restricting my outdoor exposure."

She does not remember seeing a severe warning about malaria in the area in her online research before she left, "just a warning about being kidnapped or raped." She also does not wish that she would never go to Africa, although she did recommend that you "know everything completely" before visiting another country, which she did not do.

"I have a deeper and more philosophical view of what happened to me," she concluded. "I believe this is a lesson in my life. I don't use the word "accident". This ordeal makes me need to reach both emotionally and spiritually... I have a deeper sense of purpose and gratitude than ever before. Love. Thank you for life, for the kindness of human beings, for the medical community, and for the advancement of science."

"It is difficult for me to accept my new feet, but I now regard them as beautiful things." Image source: Tim Bower. Michelle Dubé's hair and makeup

Does she want her to amputate sooner? "No," she said again. "Although this is incredibly painful and frustrating, I have to go through that process first. Cutting off a part of the body is unimaginable for anyone. I have to give myself every possible opportunity. ..... If I promised at the beginning, I would lose more legs and fingers. It is difficult for me to achieve self-acceptance of my new feet, but I now regard them as beautiful things, and I Try to stay focused on the bright side. Of course, I also have days off."

The rest days included phantom pain, heel burning, or the unbearable sensation of being stepped on to toes, for which she underwent pulsed radiofrequency stimulation to re-adjust the disordered function. On the bright side, she joked, "I will never have fat ankles." She told me that her Ellen key had become her most important accessory. She is currently looking for a jeweler to create jewelry that she can wear.

I mentioned Chanel high heels again. For the past two years, they have been kept in her wardrobe, wrapped in original tissues, and placed in the original box. Can she wear it again?

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