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Hey, My name is Takira I’m 24 years old and do I have a story for y’all! (Updates at the bottom)
So in June of 2022 I contracted covid somewhere a long the way of traveling back home to the US from my vacation celebrating my 23 birthday and it ended up impacting me more than anyone could of ever imagined. Not even 3-4 days of having covid I felt the worst I’ve ever felt and with it being a new virus and all I just chucked it up as that thinking I’ll just get better with rest. Although much to behold one day I started complaining about chest pains and moving more sluggish than previous says so my parents decided to take me to urgent care where I was cold and becoming unresponsive beginning the fight for my life. They then began to work fast to transport me to a major hospital because they felt that they didn't have adequate equipment for my condition. I was transported to Memorial on Pines once there they evaluated me and said I was having heart failure and said my condition was too severe and I had to be transported again to the main Cardiac unit at Memorial Regional on Johnson. My heart was failing due to Covid. I was diagnosed with myocarditis which is a swelling of the muscle and surrounding tissue of the heart that contracts and relaxes to pump blood in and out of the heart to the rest of the body. Myocarditis is mostly developed by an infection to the body or an autoimmune disease. After figuring out what was wrong they began to try and treat me but my heart was in such bad shape I began to code several times. They contacted my parents and got permission to add an impella to my heart and connect me to a ventilator and a machine called the ECMO. The machines were a life support system that basically worked my heart and lungs for me until they could get the swelling surrounding my heart to subside to see if my heart would start functioning on its own again. My parents were given my diagnoses and basically told that I would probably not survive and my heart would not recover because of the state I was in. They said most people on ECMO never survive and if they did they were on the machines for at minimum 3 months. Miraculously, my body started healing and I was on the ECMO and only had an impella in my heart for 10 days. I remained with a ventilator and feeding tube until they felt my body was healing correctly. Once I started healing they noticed that my circulation to my left leg and arm had been compromised. They continued to monitor it and my arm improved but my leg did not. I had suffered muscle damage when my heart was failing. They initially tried to do a process where they cut my leg open and did a fasciotomy. This is the process to relieving swelling and pressure in a compartment of the body. Things seemed better but after a few sessions of debridement which is to remove and clean the dead tissue and muscle, they found more dead tissue and muscle. So they advised me that amputation would be the best option. After thinking and praying, I called my parents and told them that the debridement process was so painful and healing was gonna take months in which I still may have ended up losing my leg and I wanted to just go ahead and amputate. So on July 20th I had surgery and my leg was amputated from below my knee, changing my life forever.
After all of this at Memorial Regional I eventually got transferred to the rehab facility Memorial Regional South and amazingly I did so well in therapy I was only there for 12 days instead of 20 or more which is their average.
Now after a year of recovering and adjusting I have the opportunity to run competitively again. The opportunity was given to me by the US Paralympic team. Now I have to do my part by getting myself a prosthetic blade. They average about $20,000+ and insurance companies don’t deem them medically necessary.
***Update***
I have my blade greatly in thanks to you all who’ve donated! I’ve been training hard four days every week non stop since I’ve been able! Although now it’s crunch time and trails for Paris is slowly approaching. You may be wondering well how come the go fund me is still up and running? Until make the USA national team my travel expenses to track meets or training aren’t covered, so so anything helps. My goal was reduced to the fact of the amazing progress I made but the journey isn’t over! Thank you
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2023/10/05/miami-dade-athlete-needs-community-support-to-become-paralympian/
Here is my instagram if you ever want to keep up with me more personally