SPC student gains strength after serious illness

by Brenda Cuellar, staff writer

No matter what obstacles and struggles Suelema Saldana faced, she managed to pull through all of them and come out on top.

Saldana, 22, a sophomore has had many hurdles in her path since she has been enrolled at South Plains College. They were not because of her classes or homework but because she had four surgeries since she arrived in the Levelland campus in January of 2005.

Saldana currently resides in Lubbock but is originally from Floydada, a small town north of Lubbock. She is the fifth child out of seven siblings, with three brothers and three sisters. In her spare time, she enjoys sewing, scrapbooking and playing basketball.

Saldana’s hard luck started when she first began to feel severe pain in her abdomen in January 2005. Not really thinking anything of it, she continued with her tasks. A few days later, she was still having the pain that was now unbearable.

 She was rushed to the emergency room at Convenant Hospital. For some reason, the doctor refused proper screening, and with the pain she was in, she was rushed to UMC. Doctors ran some tests and procedures trying to figure out what was causing her pains. The doctors came in with the news that her appendix ruptured.

The appendix is a small finger-shaped tube that comes from the large intestine. An appendix ruptures as a result of a blockage inside the appendix, which becomes inflamed and infected. If the inflammation continues without treatment, the appendix ruptures.

 Once the appendix ruptures, it is a life-threatening infection, so Saldana was rushed into surgery. While in surgery, she had eight inches of her large colon removed. The procedure came out fine, though she was told that if she had been there 15 to 20 minutes later she had the possibility of not making it. She was hospitalized for four days after the surgery.

“I was affected emotionally and physically and very depressed, but I tried to make the best of it,” she said.

A month after having surgery, she went back to the doctor to have her large colon reconnected to her small intestine. She later developed an infection, which led to a bowel obstruction, which is caused when the small intestine or colon is blocked, preventing any food or fluid from passing.

That led to her second surgery to remove a portion of her small intestine, which was infected. Then she faced a hard decision. She had no choice but to drop out in the middle of the spring 2005 semester. She had to move back home with her mother in Floydada. A nurse would arrive every day and help her with her dressing.

It took four months to recover from this surgery. Saldana says the hardest thing for her was “being a college student trying to make it through college and not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring.”

Despite everything she had been through, Saldana decided to return to SPC in the fall of 2006.  She was attending summer classes when she suddenly began to experience discomfort again. In July, she returned to UMC, and was told it was her gall bladder.

Once again, Saldana was admitted to the hospital to have a procedure done to see if she had any stones in her gall bladder. The procedure showed there had been stones, but somehow they passed because of the infection of the gall bladder. The discomfort was coming from her gall bladder being clogged with an infection and rubbing against her kidneys and intestine. The swelling was so bad that the doctors were afraid to remove the gall bladder because they would puncture her intestine. So the decision was made to put in a drain tube that would be attached to her gall bladder to remove the fluid that was causing the swelling. The drain tube was attached through her stomach.

“Living with a tube in your stomach is not the easiest thing,” Saldana said.

The tube was 16 inches long and was attached to a foot-long bag. The bag was strapped around her thigh. The second summer session had already started, and she had already missed a whole week of her English class. But after she was released from the hospital with her drain tube in tact, she managed to return to class and still managed to maintain an A in the course.

Unfortunately, Saldana didn’t have health insurance, which resulted in her tube being left in longer than it was supposed to be. It was only for four weeks, but the doctors kept on postponing the removal and left the tube in for nine weeks.

Saldana said that one of her biggest struggles was, “Knowing that I was so young and having to go through so much, and realizing how bad doctors can neglect you if you don’t have health insurance.”

She began this semester with four incisions, and staples were applied to wounds for recovery. She only missed her first day of classes for the staples to be removed and attended classes the next day. She is doing very well, but still has some pain and discomfort.

“I’m very grateful that my professors here at South Plains College have understood my issue,” Saldana said.

She plans to graduate in December with her associate’s degree in business administration.  Through all her struggles, Saldana says, “This experience made me a stronger person, and anything is possible, no matter what trials and tribulations come your way.”

Photo by Jenn Heath/Plainsman Press