Knowledgeable dancer from Florida has misplaced each his legs and narrowly escaped dying after contracting a extreme case of meningitis.
Rafael Castellano, 32, spent almost three months within the hospital, the place medical doctors had positioned him in a medically induced coma as they fought to avoid wasting his life.
After rising from the coma, Castellano mentioned he didn't keep in mind what had occurred to him.
“Each three days, I’d ask the identical query, the identical factor, asking what occurred, and it took time to grasp what was happening,” Castellano instructed Information 6 after his latest discharge from the hospital.
Castellano’s harrowing ordeal started on June 1, when the dance teacher was taken to AdventHealth Hospital in Orlando, the place he was recognized with meningococcal meningitis — a illness he mentioned he knew little about earlier than contracting it, reported the station WESH2.
Meningococcal meningitis is a uncommon however critical bacterial an infection unfold by shut contact with an contaminated individual’s saliva, which causes the liner of the mind and spinal twine to swell, typically leading to dying.
Signs of the life-threatening sickness embody fever, headache, stiff neck, vomiting and sensitivity to mild, in line with the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Castellano mentioned that as he was clinging to life, his household was instructed to organize for the worst consequence.
“This micro organism that’s in your physique (is) to the purpose the place your physique turns into like a poison to itself,” Castellano mentioned.
Castellano underwent eight surgical procedures through the summer time and had each his legs amputated under the knee.
However he mentioned he's grateful to be alive — and is decided to stroll and dance once more with the assistance of prosthetics.
“I really feel like it is a miracle, that’s the one option to clarify it,” he mentioned. “And now I've the drive to maintain combating and exhibiting all people what I’m able to.”
Castellano was launched from the hospital in late August and has been accepted into an inpatient bodily remedy facility to start his lengthy restoration.
Whereas ready for his wounds from the surgical procedures to heal, Castellano has been sharing his story to lift consciousness of the uncommon an infection that just about ended his life — and the vaccine that has been developed to guard the general public from it.
“If I might have recognized about it previous to all of it, possibly my story could be fully totally different. It’s not that I’m regretting issues. It’s extra like the attention,” Castellano mentioned.
The dancer doesn't have medical insurance and has been elevating cash to assist cowl his rising medical bills by a GoFundMe marketing campaign, which thus far has drawn greater than $56,000.
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