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He made his living in Costa Rica, listening to other people's problems.
Now Mario Moya Alfonso, a psychologist who says he was once recruited
by Harvard Medical School, has his own troubles. They've consumed
his livelihood. Now they threaten his life.
He has come to South Florida with the help of a Fort Lauderdale-based
Christian foundation to repair the terrible damage from a radiation
accident seven years ago at San Juan de Dios Hospital in San José, Costa
Rica.
An overdose of radiation zapped Alfonso's cancer cells, but left
him exposed to other dangers.
The accident eventually led to an inability to swallow and eat solid
food. He lost his ear. He takes morphine for constant, excruciating
pain. And he is constantly threatened with infection through the non-healing
wounds on the side of his head.
But with the help of Fort Lauderdale-based Small World Foundation,
which has agreed to pay for his treatment and surgery, Alfonso hopes
to restore his quality of life.
The 52-year-old Costa Rican native considers himself lucky.
Alfonso is staying with relatives in Miami while he travels every day
to Broward County to receive help he hopes will close his wounds ad
make his face whole again.
"God was with me", Alfonso said recently from his cousin Mercy Hernandez's
house in Cooper City.
He lived. He has hope. Other patients who mistakenly
received dangerous doses of radiation from the same machine died, he
said.
It took a year and a half for radiation symptoms to become so severe
they realized they would die, Alfonso said through his cousin.
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As his own tissue continued to deteriorate, Alfonso left his job
as a psychologist to go on full disability. He said he continued
to visit the hospital daily to have his wounds scraped, and he would
see the same employee whose mistake caused him to receive the equivalent
of 66 radiation treatments instead of 25.
Every time he went by there, he shook [the technician's] hand, and
told them there were no hard feelings," Hernandez said.
Hernandez found the humanitarian organization Small World Foundation
on the Internet. The 7-year –old foundation provides reconstructive
and medical aid to people in emerging nations who have no access to
medical resources.
The organization agreed to pay for Alfonso's hyperbaric treatment
in a South Florida hospital as well as doctor's visits and surgeries
to remove dead bone and graft skin over his open wounds. Fort
Lauderdale plastic surgeon Laurence Arnold is donating his time and
skills for Alfonso's treatment. The hospital where the treatments
have taken place did not wish to be identified. And Arnold would
not disclose how much the operations cost.
Arnold, who helped found Small World, is raising funds for a mobile
hospital that will be based in Honduras, so such operations can be performed
in Third World countries that don't have access to modern surgical procedures.
Mercy actually e-mailed us and asked if we could help her," Arnold
said.
Alfonso met the organization's criteria: He was in an area with no
access to the medical treatment he needed. He had no financial
resources. And he could be helped.
"A zillion people returned to me to tell me they couldn't help, they
couldn't help," Hernandez said.
Alfonso has left behind his wife and two young children in Costa
Rica to travel to South Florida, where he underwent hyperbaric treatments
for several months. About 10 days ago he underwent surgery to
remove infected bone. He has since returned to stay with family
in Miami while a search is made for another doctor to perform reconstructive
surgery on his face and the side of the head.
Throughout it all, Hernandez said, her cousin has remained hopeful
his wounds will heal, and he will be able to play with his children
again.
"He's never asked himself 'Why me?'" Hernandez said. "Everything
has a purpose. Whatever happened to him has a purpose.
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More information about Small World Foundation can be found at
www.smallworld.org/
Christy MdKerney can be reached at
cmckerney@sun-sentinel.com
or 9+54-572-2008.
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