Sully's Project: Change of College

Sully's Story

Sully (pronounced Sue-Lee) is a 22 year old vivacious young lady living in the campo (countryside) of Costa Rica. She is beautiful, brilliant and full of life, a life matured way beyond her years – more about that shortly.

Sully graduated from high school with high aspirations of becoming a nurse and working in a hospital or clinic. In her words “I would like to be a professional. I want to work in a health center because I love the people, I like the direct contact and I have the capacity to act in difficult situations in order to help people. I wish to share the atmosphere that there is in a clinic or hospital where the people need someone who can help them and relieve their pain in their body and in their mind.”

In early 2004 (the academic years begin in January – February in Costa Rica) Sully was on a solid track to realize her dreams. Because of her excellent grades in high school she was going to the University of Costa Rica (UCR) with a full academic scholarship, some help from her parents and a part time job.

Her third year was going pretty much as did the first two (getting wonderful grades, and thoroughly enjoying herself) until October 24th, 2006 when the first of two overwhelming events occurred. While walking to her apartment after school she was abducted by four men and held hostage for about four hours in a car. During that ordeal she was physically and sexually abused and tortured. One of her captors insisted that she be let go when he remembered her as a nurse that cared for his child in the hospital.

Sully was absolutely devastated by the attack, both mentally and physically. Burned and bruised she was told by the university’s psychiatrist the she should not continue her studies and should take time to heal. This was an agonizing time for Sully. She desperately wanted to continue with her studies as she was preparing for her final yearly exams and completing her practical, yet she knew that she needed time to recuperate. To complicate matters she also had partial amnesia; blocking out much of the attack, having a hard time remembering her name and telephone number but being able to remember most of her schooling.

Sully began settling in with her recovery, resting and receiving psychological help. Just as things were beginning to improve, on December 27, 2006 tragedy struck in the form a car versus motorcycle accident. Sully and her father were traveling along the Pan American highway on their way home on her father’s motorcycle (the family’s only form of transportation) when they were struck by a hit and run driver. Sully’s father received crushing injuries and abrasions, but Sully’s injuries were much more severe. When she arrived at the hospital she found that she had, among various bruises and abrasions, fractured her left femur in two places and her left tibula-fibula in 5 places. Due to the nature of her injuries, including open wounds in the fracture areas, she was told by the attending physician that she would have to have her leg amputated. After much begging and pleading she was transported to Mexico hospital, a more modern facility, in San José. There she received slightly better news when she was told that if there was no infection that the doctors would try to repair her leg. She had emergency surgery for stabilization, but then started the waiting game with Instituto Nacional de Seguro, the national insurance agency. She found that in order to receive the type of surgeries that she needed she would have to wait until after the first of the calendar year. So, for the next week she received basic care, IV antibiotics and pain management while in the ICU.

Her “real” care then began. Her first surgery on January 6, 2007 was to repair her femur and perform initial tib-fib alignment using external fixation and lasted eleven hours. Her second surgery on Jan 27th involved removal of the external devices and insertion of pins and screws in the lower leg and lasted 10 hours. She was then transported back to the hospital near her home (due to insurance reasons) for recuperation. For the next two and a half months Sully was alternately at home and in the hospital, for wound care complicated by infection, all the while receiving NO physical therapy. Part of her initial decision process (attempt to save her leg or receive an amputation) was that if she received the surgeries there would be no money for physical or out patient therapy. If she had opted for the amputation she would have received therapy – quite the dilemma! Since there was not adequate insurance, Sully had to clean her own wounds. She and her mother traveled on the bus daily to the clinic where a friend worked. This friend had made arrangements with the clinic to provide her with gloves, dressings and antibiotics, but there was no money to pay to have the work done.

All the while Sully’s parents were very supportive, providing round the clock care, helping her to the clinic and taking care of the mountain of paperwork. As soon as she was able, Sully began going to an internet café to learn what to do in the form of physical therapy, despite being told she would never walk normally. From the internet she devised her own program using the local pool. This involved using crutches to get to the local bus stop for transportation to town and then crutch walking to the pool. In July of 2007 she began to walk with crutches and by December she was walking without a cane – nearly one year after her accident. She began working part time in the store of a friend of the family.

In February of 2008 she had “hardware” removed from her leg and some scar repair.

She began making decisions about her future. She was told by her doctors that a nursing career was out of the question, that there was no way that she could stand for any length of time, move patients or otherwise function in that career. Undeterred, Sully took 6 courses in psychology, paid for by her father, hoping to embark on another professional health career. Then money began to be a problem. Since her family had limited income, and her sister’s “turn” for education was upcoming, Sully obtained a scholarship at Instituto Nacional de Aprendizage (INA) to learn to speak English. By August she was walking nearly three miles a day. Her plan was to get a job in a call center, abandoning her dream of a nursing career.

Sully began coming to David and Raylene’s house in September of 2008 with a group of INA students where they had weekly “conversation groups” - an opportunity for students to practice their English skills with native English speakers. As Dave and Raylene began to know the students better they got to know Sully’s story, and began to see her incredible potential. She had given up on nursing, her first love, but her desire to be in the healthcare field was still prominent.

When Pam came to Costa Rica in early December 2008 and met Sully, she saw that although it would not be easy, it may be possible to embark on a program of therapy that would allow her to perform all of the standing, walking and lifting functions of a nurse. Sully began to dream again and formulate a plan. She spent the next several days doing the footwork, investigating her career options and educational requirements. She decided that her best option was to first become a clinical psychologist and then to complete her nursing studies.

We are all committed to helping this most deserving young tica, and insuring her success with her "project".

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Change of College

Everyone in Sully’s class along with another class from a different ULatina campus are changing colleges. They are changing to UACA (pronounced wocka) as UACA offers a general curriculum for their Licenciatura as opposed to a clinical curriculum.
Matricula and registration for courses at UACA are not paid in cash but by showing the receipt that you got from the bank when you paid for the courses.
Classes begin Monday, May 10th.