A full recovery is expected for a Binghamton University student who contracted bacterial meningitis while studying abroad during the spring semester in 2007.
Mayra Rodriguez, a junior majoring in philosophy, politics and law at the time, was studying in Salamanca, Spain, when she fell ill. She contracted the disease on Jan. 26, 2007, three weeks into the semester.
Rodriguez, now 22 years old, has returned to her home in White Plains after spending months in New York City hospitals. To improve speaking, reading and writing skills that were weakened by the disease, Rodriguez has participated in several different rehabilitation programs.
“I am in the process of getting better,” Rodriguez said. “I already graduated from Burke Rehabilitation Hospital. I now go to Iona [College] for other speech, writing and reading programs.”
Over the past year, Rodriguez has been exercising, dancing and relearning how to read and write with the help of tutors who visit her house. She has also been playing the violin again, a passion of hers before she got sick.
“It came back to me,” Rodriguez said. “It was a process.”
When she first fell ill, Rodriguez visited a doctor for severe headaches, and within 24 hours she fell into a coma that lasted for five days. Her parents flew to Spain immediately and Rodriguez was airlifted back into the United States on Feb. 21. She was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and on Feb. 26, she was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital for recovery.
“I saw her when she was down in the city at the hospital, and she was basically a shell of her former self,” Kristen Longo, a 2008 BU graduate and long-time friend of Rodriguez, said. “Now she is basically back to normal, gossiping and remembering. You can tell that this one spark still isn’t there, but the improvement is amazing.”
“I am so proud of her,” Longo added.
However, there have been problems along the way.
The insurance Rodriguez was under while studying abroad only covered her as long as she remained in Spain. When she returned to the United States to receive further medical treatment, her family assumed that their health insurance would cover her medical bills.
Instead, the insurance company refused to pay more than $400,000 in medical bills accrued because she couldn’t remain in school full time while on medical leave. Though several students and different groups on campus held events to raise money for Rodriguez after she got sick, according to Rodriguez, there are still bills left.
“The medical bills are still a problem. Insurance does not want to pay because they say I am not a full-time student, but it is getting there,” she said. “I wish it could all just be over.”
Friends and family are seeing a significant improvement in Rodriguez and said they are impressed by how quickly she is recovering.
“The cases that were similar to hers have shown full recovery, but I never expected it to be this quick,” Longo said. “Mayra is a fighter. When she wants something, she goes for it with her all. She has a strength that no one could match up to.”
Rodriguez said she wants to return to BU, but that doctors recommended she stay at home for now and attend Westchester Community College, where she can transfer her credits.
“She’s still not at the point where she could probably return to school or do some of the other things she used to do, but there’s no doubt in my mind that she will be able to sometime in the future,” Greg Cashman, Rodriguez’s boyfriend and a BU alumnus, said. “Mayra has been incredibly strong through this entire ordeal and we’re all lucky to know somebody as incredible as her.”