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BY ERIKA ROSE
Times Correspondent | Monday, March 10, 2008 | (No comments posted.)
Erica Van Zuidam lounged by the pool with friends, taking a break before finals in her freshman year at The University of Illinois in Champaign.
By the next morning, the now 22-year-old Beecher woman was at a hospital in Urbana fighting for her life, setting in motion a tumultuous journey that wouldn't have her back at that pool until more than a year later, transformed by the experience she says seemed to have been fatefully planned for her.
The disease pummeling her body that evening wasn't the flu, but meningitis. In the hours that followed her early morning trip to the ER that day, Van Zuidam's blood had gone into septic shock and all her organs began shutting down.
Doctors put her in a drug-induced coma and operated while her family prayed.
Five days later, doctors told the Van Zuidams their daughter might live but that she would lose both hands and both feet. Seven weeks after that, a helicopter took Van Zuidam to the University of Chicago Hospital for the amputation surgeries. Rehabilitation and fittings for prosthetic limbs came next at a third institution.
Finally, on Sept. 8, four months after feeling ill at the pool, Van Zuidam walked out of the hospital on her own two legs and into her home, which had been adorned with pink welcome home ribbons.
"It was a big day," remembers her father, Tim Van Zuidam.
As if adjusting to a life with prosthetic limbs wasn't frustrating enough, the prostheses themselves were sometimes uncomfortable and didn't seem to be working for her all that well.
On the recommendation of one of her dad's clients, Van Zuidam went to Scheck & Siress, the largest private orthotic/prosthetic practice in the greater Chicago area, and met Senior Prosthetist David Rotter.
Rotter intently listened to Van Zuidam's goals, desires and ambitions and set to work -- designing, modifying and building prostheses that would enable her to do what mattered most to her.
In a series of appointments that are sometimes nine hours long, Rotter gave her limbs she could put on by herself. He enabled a better posture and stance. He gave her running legs. He even gave her the capability to wear high heels.
Some 15 months after her ordeal began, Van Zuidam is back at school, independent and determined as ever. She's changed her major, hoping to someday work as an occupational therapist and be able to show someone firsthand how to use his or her own prosthetic limbs.
Van Zuidam's Christian faith has carried her through this ordeal and in a sense assures her that her illness didn't happen by chance. Rather, it's a path that has been strategically planned out for her.
Why else, she reasons, did no one else contract the disease? Meningitis, which has been called the "dorm disease," is extremely contagious. Yet, no one else at school caught the disease, not even her roommate.
With optimism, she says, "It's a plan."
Erica Van Zuidam
Diagnosis: Bacterial meningitis, which caused her to lose both her hands and both her feet
Prosthetist: David Rotter, senior prosthetist at Scheck & Siress
Treatment: Rotter intently listened to Van Zuidam's frustrations, goals, ambitions and desires and designed prosthesis to help her achieve independence, comfort and possibilities for the future.
Advice: To others facing a life with prosthetic limbs, Van Zuidam says, "I know this is extremely scary. I know you probably think, 'what the heck is going to happen?' But there are amazing people out there who can help you get prosthetics and can get you back where you need to be and extremely independent."
FYI: (312) 996-6450 or www.scheckandsiress.com
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