She said it straight from the heart: “I ask for your understanding, I just want to walk again. It’s simple: I need prosthetic legs.” It is not meant to be a pun when we say that brave young mum Pathyelli Sousa de Nascimento is single-handedly trying to move on with her life after the tick-bite that changed it forever. She has in fact only three intact fingers and a partial thumb now – as well as both legs amputated below the knee – but she still has her dreams, and she is desperately trying to move on with them.
Knowing there is a waiting list and delays in the supply of prosthetics has left her “depressed”. she says in a letter to hospital director Pedro Nunes. “I am young, 31 years old, I have a three-year-old daughter and I have to live my life, look after myself.”
The Algarve Resident recently visited Pathy on a cold windswept Saturday afternoon. We were delivering bottletops and clothing donated by a number of readers (the bottletops help towards the payment for second-stage prosthetic limbs) – and Pathy was carefully writing the letter on a laptop computer, alone, on a bed, in a house apparently devoid of heating.
We suggested she send the letter and we would then follow it up – to try and get the ‘simple’ first-step prosthetics that will be her passport to freedom.
When surgeons decided to amputate Pathy’s legs due to tissue-damage as a result of sepsis following a tick-bite, they said they were making the cuts even, at 7cm below both knees, so that she could more easily be fitted with prosthetics. But despite ongoing physiotherapy, the brave Brazilian still has no idea when these will become available.
She sent her letter last week – and delivered a copy in person to the reception desk at Portimão hospital. “I haven’t received any reply,” she said on Monday.
Meantime, Pathy’s husband Carlos is busy trying to renovate their Algoz home. Pathy tells us they would welcome any donations of building materials – from sand, to cement, tiles, anything at all in fact.
For more information on Pathy’s struggles, see her facebook page “Vamos ajudar a Pathy” or call her on 923209616 (Portuguese speaking only).
Anyone wishing to give a cash donation can do so via:
NIB: 0036.0201.99100031701.75
IBAN: PT50.0036.0201.99100031701.75
BIC/ SWIFT: MPIOPTPL.
Meantime, we will keep you up to date on the progress of her latest bid for new legs.
By NATASHA DONN [email protected]
Photo: Pathy typing a letter to Algarve hospital director Pedro Nunes asking for prosthetic legs
