Brazilian Cláudia Albuquerque, 23, who is in the United States for an exchange, was paralyzed after contracting a bacterial infection. She has been hospitalized for almost two months and breathes with the help of machines.
Faced with the situation, her family opened a fundraiser online to try to raise money to cover the debt for treatment in the United States and to bring her back to Brazil.
The fundraiser was opened last week and, by early Tuesday evening (16), it had already raised just over R$156,800. The target set is R$1 million. According to the family, the air ambulance alone would cost around US$200,000.
What happened
Through a social network, Luísa, Cláudia's sister, made a post reporting what happened to the young woman. According to her, on February 17th, Cláudia began to feel symptoms such as dizziness, double vision and shortness of breath.
The next day, the girl's friends found her with facial paralysis and difficulty speaking and communicating. They took the young woman to a hospital and, initially, doctors believed it was an asthma attack. According to the family, the team also considered that it could be an allergic or even panic attack, causing Cláudia to be medicated with anxiolytics.
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Later, Cláudia was taken to a hospital in Denver, also in Colorado, where she remains today. For the transfer, the student needed to be sedated and intubated, as she was unable to breathe on her own. When she arrived, her muscles were already paralyzed.
“After countless exams, tests, hospital transfers, lumbar punctures and plasma transfusions, on March 1st we were diagnosed: botulism. It is an extremely rare disease, which destroys the connections between nerves and muscles, taking several months to regenerate”, says the post.
After almost two months, the girl remains hospitalized in the United States, away from her family. “Each day of hospitalization costs an average of 10 thousand dollars. The travel insurance she had ended a long time ago, and the hospital bills are only increasing”, added the sister.
The family decided that now is the time to try to bring Cláudia to Brazil, as, according to her sister, her condition is “starting to become more stable”.
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Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
