“The fears are there but they are fought day by day.” This is how Beatriz Farfán (46) feels, but above all, what is her attitude to life in the process of adapting her as a amputee person
Five years ago he experienced a traumatic event when he was out for a walk in the city of Córdoba. He had traveled from Salta for Luis Miguel’s recital. Days later she was sitting on the corner of Pueyrredón Avenue and Vélez Sarsfield Avenue when her friend walked away for a moment to order a taxi and at that moment a driver ran the red light and crashed into another vehicle. The force of the impact caused both vehicles to drag at full speed and hit Beatriz.
As a result of the impact of the vehicle against their legs, they had to be amputated, as they were in an irrecoverable state. From that suffering, Beatriz began a path of physical and emotional repair with the goal of walking again and achieving a better quality of life.
“A month after the accident, I started doing things around the house, and my house is not adapted for a person with a wheelchair,” he said in an interview. He made the decision not to let himself be defeated and focused on raising his children.
Beatriz recognizes that she does not have peace every day. “Many days are painful when I come face to face with the frozen feelings of my past.” However, coupled with that she recognizes that through her consciousness – which continually evolves – she acquires a greater ability to establish and maintain healthy and loving relationships, “not only with others, but unexpectedly and amazingly with myself.” .
At the same time, Beatriz received her prostheses but had difficulty walking due to lack of balance. Her bilateral amputation caused resistance to the fit of the cone – the interface between the stump and the prosthesis. So she needed to find a solution in medicine to fulfill her desire.
A message, an opportunity
Instagram connected her with a trauma doctor who understood her pain. Erik Pebe Pueyrredón was born in Peru but at the age of eight his family settled in Mar del Plata. Erik fell ill with cancer and after several interventions and treatments to save one of his legs, it had to be amputated.
Although as a child he wanted to study medicine like his father, when deciding on a specialty, traumatology, a branch of medicine dedicated to the study of musculoskeletal injuries, was synonymous with pain.
Already settled in Buenos Aires, it was a head of the Policlinico Bancario hospital who encouraged him to optimistically recognize some of his limitations – although he did not agree – and the doctor who had operated on him at the “Ángel H. Roffo” Institute of Oncology. who encouraged him to become a prosthetic reconstruction specialist.
The challenge was not easy but with effort Pebe Pueyrredón developed a successful career mainly at the renowned Alexander Fleming Institute and where less than two months ago he operated on Farfán.
Beatriz had investigated that there was an operation that could give her a new possibility. However, the surgery was not performed in Argentina. It took two years of preparation and patience until recently the Brazilian laboratory Impol designed the specific prototypes for Farfán.
Unpublished operation
Bilateral transfemoral osseointegration is a technique that produces a molecular level union of titanium with the bone and the intervention in Beatriz was the first case in Argentina.
“This week Beatriz stood on her prosthetic legs and is taking her first steps with total unloading by adopting rubber pads to the transfemoral exo prosthetic component. “Over time she will incorporate sensitivity to footsteps,” says Pebe Pueyrredón.
Fate, coincidence or who knows what made Beatriz and Erik meet. They both share a common experience. “As a child I was an amputee patient and when I studied the degree I understood how I would have liked to be listened to. I try to do that with my patients. Over time, many of them are my friends,” she acknowledges. And as a reflection he adds: “Amputation is not an end. It is a new beginning, it is part of a treatment.”
The resilience of amputees
In her graduate thesis, psychologist Joanna E. Hayes maintains that the traumatic, unexpected amputee has the heavy burden of the unexpected, the surprising, and that it is a mistake to believe that the amputee is a suffering being due to the fact of losing a leg. . For the graduate, there are many who interpret the new situation as a challenge. “How the amputee adapts to the new situation depends, as we have seen, on the personal resources that the patient puts in place and the social support that surrounds him, in addition to how the health personnel provide him with the corresponding information and help. The amputee’s previous personality will also influence subsequent adaptation,” she describes.
Mental health specialists Ellen Winchell and Richard Mooney explain that the attitude and way of approaching amputation is what determines how the new situation is experienced, and not so much the disability. These authors consider that the attitude is in the head – and therefore can be changed – and not in the extremities. Furthermore, they insist on their own personal power, as reflected by our informants, to get ahead, on the power to choose a favorable attitude and not one that is victimizing or chained to sometimes defeatist thoughts. Being an amputee is just a label, but it does not describe what the person is like.
In the midst of rehabilitation, Beatriz shares her experience because it can help other patients to be encouraged. “It is very gratifying to see her smile with each new progress,” adds her doctor.
Unstoppable. By imagining a word that summarizes Beatriz’s story, the song Unstoppable – “Unstoppable” in Spanish–, by the Australian artist Sia, resonates in my head:
“I put on my armor and show you how strong I am. “I put on my armor, I will show you that I am… I am unstoppable.”
