"History begins the day I lost fear," he says.We meet Eliza Arcaya (Caracas, 1971) on the terrace of one of its restaurants in Madrid, Velázquez 17.The movement of the flame of the heat stove is reflected in its face as if it were a fable bird that does not burn, which is reborn from its ashes: this fifty -year -old Venezuelan businesswoman has a severe blue look, underlined by two grooves ofgravity.And he has an incredible story to tell.“It was August 18, 2018, there begins my story.That day my son had an absurd accident in which he loses his life and enters a deep coma ”.
When Arcaya came to rescue her son at the scene of the accident -there was fallen from a small height in a golf cart -“I met my son in a coma, which five minutes ago was perfect.It was weird.How is it possible that everyone was unharmed him less? ”.
Because of the way the impact occurred, “Joaquín's brain continued to turn so to speak inside his head.This is called axonal diffuse injury, so it was exactly how they diagnosed it.It is as if you have a turn in the brain stem, where all the connections of the neurons that go through that channel go, ”he explains gesturing with his hands.
Joaquín Chumaceiro was 19 when he suffered the accident.
"Basically died".She remembers that she felt "a whip in his heart" when he saw him, "lying on the floor, bleeding by the ears".They told him that it was impossible for him to recover his ‘autopilot’."They even told me to disconnect it.I was not going to do that and I told the Emergency doctor that neither with my beloved dog would do so, more with my son.So my husband and I made the decision to fight because he had been in total vegetative state, with assisted and monitored breathing ”.Neurologists told Arcaya that in his life they had never seen any case of the severity that Joaquín had and did not give him "nor the 1% chance of breathing just again".
Joaquín Chumaceiro was 19 when that absurd and terrible accident happened to him by celebrating his sister's birthday."Today he has 23 and then we will call him on the phone, okay?" Explains his mother, and it is the first time he smiles."Advancing a little to history because between that moment and this afternoon three and a half years have passed and everything has happened to us: but today Joaquín walks, speaks, is self -sufficient ... We have made a path of miracles and thousands of adventures".
One can perfectly visualize a middle -aged marriage, the economist and she restoratively, with three children, who arrived in Madrid twenty years ago and run two hospitality businesses in Madrid.It is more difficult to be able to guess how they would react to such a circumstance."This was the piece of cake that touched us," she explains, with resignation.
“My husband is a very scientific guy who reads and studies.I am a person of faith, ”he clarifies.For the way in which he pronounces the word faith, one would feel tempted to accentuate it in the final 'e', something against any rule.“And I think this point is important, because if one has no faith, and I do not mean only religious faith, if one does not believe intensely in things, they do not happen.I was born in Venezuela and I am religious.We both made a team in which he focused on the entire research part and I in the operational part.It is not a decision we made, it was something instinctive ”.
"What we felt that he was kidnapped in his own body," he explains, and adds how "the brain is the body of the body that you cannot study: it is really like the universe, very little is known.And then every human being is different, it's like the fingerprint.I am telling you my story right now, which is in my head, in my brain, you are processing the stimuli you receive in yours, through speech.It is a giant film that happens within each of the people.When you have an accident at that wingspan, you are zero, for my son it was like driving a Boeing 777 without knowing how to use the controls, on the darkest night ”.
From that place of emergency in which he had primary care he went to the Jackson Clinic in Miami and hence Eliza decided to take the risk of bringing it to Spain."They advised me to fly from Miami.I got a special permit and we fly from the Jackson with the doubt of whether your brain would endure the pressure.But I was sure of this transfer because, after a desperate conversation with a Swiss doctor by WhatsApp, he told me ‘lift my head 30º’, ‘Check the medication’...And it made it clear that I could recover, that I had to bring you home ".
“The word‘ coma ’is terrifying.I remember how fog that moment.It was so dark ... I threw my knees to the floor of that emergency hospital and said ‘God, help me, tell what I have to do, but don't take it’.It's something I don't want to anyone.When you have a life or death situation: it is not dead, it is not alive, it stayed in a coma… ”.Eliza Arcaya needed external psychological help but continued focused on her purpose.
In Spain a research, essay and error process began.“We spent very hard moments because from the Emergency Hospital they told us that there was nothing to do and we were suggested to take it directly to a palliative center.We got a wonderful opportunity in the International Ruber and we took it there, where we were three months ”.Apart from the hospital doctors, he had the visit of therapists, for example of the Dace Foundation, “the therapist Lorena Rodríguez of the Dace Foundation who worked with me every day from two to six in the afternoon in intensive therapies, for testing".
Eliza and Joaquín.
Joaquín did not connect: he was, to speak, blank."To all the work that came later I compare it to weave a huge carpet, but by millimeters".She remembers a day that her husband said: 'Eliza, she is already in a coma, worse cannot put on, or we work together or do not leave this'.My husband was looking for scientific options and I prayed, I remember that my sister entered the altar in the room and said 'Choose the saint of her devotion' because they were all ".
At first, “Joaquin's face had no expression.He lost 20 kg and was all contractured ”.Before the accident, he studied computing.So, at the time he started breathing, although he still had tracheotomy, his mother remembers talking directly to him for the first time.“One day, I put my hand behind the head and said,“ Joaquín, you wanted to work, right?God has given you your first job: you will reconnect, rebuild and repair your own computer, your brain.You are going to connect everything and you will get out of this ".
For her, “the Spanish health system is applause, I have to say it.And we had to develop the patience of being able to walk life with someone in the step that this person needs and not impose your desire, even for the better, it is the reality that rules.Go looking for solutions for them, keeping your peace, your serenity, your peace of mind to accompany someone at a time like that ”.
One of the things that most helped this young man, which is surprising in the case of the brain, was food."When you are in those vegetative states, they inject you as a kind of mix protein by tube directly to the stomach, with the amount of calories you need per day".When his family gets food to change to “pure organic vegetables, cow liver and a lot.
"I called Blanca Entrecanales that the miracle's pasture has and she helped us by sending us products of the best quality," Arcaya explains.We negotiated with the doctors who could administer at least one natural meal per day and injected it by means.Look, as a family, we had intuition of what had to be done, but there was a difficulty in connecting with doctors, who follow protocols and systematic actions, and I understand it, ”he adds.
If, according to recent studies, "80% of what we consume are nutrients that go to the brain and nervous system", for Arcaya "one does not know the importance of food until it proves it.The supplements were also key.Roberto began investigating fungi, and Joaquín took some Galician encapsulated that were natural supplements of Omega 3, vitamins and minerals for neurological connection ”.This type of aid is not typified for cases of head trauma, but their efforts to improve made different paths to look.
Already in the hospital, Eliza created a "five minutes, five senses" stimulation method.He explains herself with a look at who remembers a feat.“We did a few five -minute therapies: one of strong sounds with wooden blocks, one of flashes of lights in the eyes, another to caress the whole body, another of putting spicy, Wasabi or Chile in the tongue and another of smells likeMandarin, ammonia, vinegar ... We expected five minutes and started again, and this action was done at least 50 times a day, ”he says.From eight in the morning at ten o'clock at night, the words that Eliza Arcaya remembers pronounce!.
At this point in history, it is worth a note: Eliza Arcaya's attitude is difficult to adjective, and would not be qualifiable only attentive.Profusa, feraz, opima, ubérrima and even judging by the number of saints, prayers, treatments, therapies and shuffled options ... could be described as lush.Arcaya even created in this circumstance a brand of clothing called AMPM, for women who due to circumstances have high extreme demand at schedules to take care of someone from AM to PM ... a real cyclone of attention.
Even in the hospital, “we took him out of bed, we dragged him by the feet.I have to show you some videos to make the idea.Lorena [from Fundación Dace] asked me one day suddenly: ‘Eliza, have you washed your hands?...I told him, 'No, for what, if he is in a coma?, put the information again '.And that phrase opened a whole world of possible actions ".In a few days, music sounded again.“We didn't feel like, of course, but we put Rolling Stones songs at the hospital.If you start me up ... we danced, we sang Rosarios, everything you can imagine ”.
At one point, explains Eliza, “we decided to take it with us home.We put an electric bed and remodel the bathroom.And Joaquín was in a very low state and intensive care.He ate by the stomach, he wore a diaper… ”.
The boy's older sister had entered a deep shock and her mother had decided "that she studied in a university outside so that she did not have to be in charge of such a hard situation" seeing her brother every day and that she was not at home.His little sister "lived a time at his aunt's house, and then stayed at home".Somehow, for Eliza Arcaya it was as if her son was born again."I have had three children, but I have given birth twice, because they returned it to me a newborn, so to speak," he says.
"We were like fishermen," says Arcaya."Each therapy was a hook we threw to see what we collected.Little by little it was about recovering fragments of the person who was in.They were three years of hard work.Physical therapies, speech therapy, auditory ... Everything! ”.
A great family medical friend of the family suggested yoga, meditation and visualization techniques and told them about the history of Joe Dispenza, an American neuroscientific that was hit in 1986 going with a bicycle, the spine was injured and managed to recover.“This same psychiatrist friend explained to me the difference between the sympathetic and parasympathetic system and I knew that Joaquín, who liked music so much, would help him listen to it live.A patient from the psychiatrist who had had a psychotic outbreak her own husband were working together in the curative power of music.So they came home to play guitar and Chelo ".
Something impressive happened when they played Joaquín's favorite song that was Starway to Heaven de Led Zeppelin.“Joaquín was still in a wheelchair and when they start touching this symphonic rock, he raised his head a little and put his cornuda hand.It was the first time that he showed a sense of humor, which he had so much before the accident.All that the people who came for him did, I think he gave him something ”.
"I say it was miraculous, but you'll see why," Arzaya begins."When Joaquín had progressed a little, even in a wheelchair, we decided as part of the process to make the way of Santiago".While there, someone told them about Jesús Devesa, the Foltra Foundation, in Teo, with a center about ten kilometers from Santiago de Compostela (A Coruña)."The son of this endocrine had an accident similar to that of Joaquín and his father developed a protocol for growth hormone injections and his son, which was an exemplary case of a medical miracle, married, studied medicine ... we went to see it andHe said he had potential, and there we left ".
They began a treatment in October with this doctor “And in January he took his first steps ... he was improving so much that in the next July he already walked, even with balance problems, but he got up from the wheelchair in Santiago de Compostela, thanksto Dr. Devesa and the Foltra Foundation ".Arcaya asked him to advance without truce, "I told him that it was not enough,‘ Dale Joaquín that we are going for the next step ’, and thus passed one and the other day.A part of learning to walk again was also fear.He thinks he was born again, he had to learn to breathe, eat, drink water, go to the bathroom and it is impressive to see how he was reconquering activities ”.
The amazing of this case was also the good humor and the positive attitude of it.“Even now that it still has a small paralysis on the left side because of the lack of oxygen I tell him,‘ Joaquín, you look like a tyrannosaurius rex ’, and he responds by putting his hand like a claw.Sometimes I still write to you now apologize for being so insistent and answers things like ‘Don't worry, I don't grab me personal, everything perfect’.He is a great teacher of life, ”says excited and smiling.
"My circumstance," says this mother, "it is something very concrete, a very serious head trauma, but perhaps my experience serves any mother to which a complicated situation or disease has to touch, in which it is not known what the future is.You have to work thinking that the result is going to be good, it doesn't matter if whatever it is ”.
In this story there were moments of great pain, of great gloom.“You don't know the result of what is going to happen, betting on things and you really don't know what it helped at all.The result was the sum of the entire process and continues to add.Joaquín no longer goes to people's therapies with brain damage.Go to the Reebok gym by bus.What can you do alone?Well, wash your clothes or cook, it would take hours, but you would.He has been able, within his circumstance, to evolve to a point that is impressive ”.
Arcaya comments that Marie Curie is attributed a phrase that the co -star of this story likes:.That is, to be less afraid you have to understand better.I grabbed every little thing I understood that it helped me to make the point and followed by the story ”.
Does not feel a super woman.“Of course I had a fatal!Do you know what it is to have vertigo for three months?A dizziness that did not take me away, I did not sleep well for years.And when I dreamed, I dreamed with kidnappings.I felt he was kidnapped by his body.The process notice that I would summarize it as if Joaquín had gotten into a jail and we had disassembled brick to the prison around him.We still have some bricks, but I would say it was love, creativity, intuition, the whole process ... This without love would have been impossible ”.
For Elisa, “when you are open to things, and do not lock yourself, if you have the attitude of receiving, there are so many people in life that they can give you things without asking for anything in return, and doing so well.I was in a situation where I couldn't go looking for anything, because I was in a hospital all day, but I was receptive, with an open heart.The result was wonderful.Of course you cannot control everything, but they are important above all the attitude and perseverance with which you do things ”.
Remember that afternoon a doctor told him that his son was never going to breathe for himself.“And I replied, you don't understand, this child is going to know Greece.And a few weeks ago I took it in a wheelchair.In life nothing is sure at all and nothing is written.If we have learned something, you can do the roads, but it is important not to do it alone.There are always people who can help you see things that suddenly you didn't see ”.
His mother was born in 1937 and, as he recounts with a look of overcoming, he was a survivor of World War II and Munich's bombings, “he was orphaned and lived with some nuns and was having a very bad time.She instilled in me the idea of believing in yourself and having faith when circumstances are so difficult.Well, in addition, I believe in miracles ".
Joaquín, who has received public support from numerous faces known as Miguel Ángel Muñoz or Carolina Herrera, according to the networks, now wants to make a documentary, but his mother has responded “well, we have to have a spectacular ending, it is not going tobe just the story of someone who came out of coma and walks.If we are going to do something, you have to find an algorithm that changes the world, get creative, something that helps in the diagnoses of others, whatever ... we are doing well, but we still need to find a spectacular ending for the documentary ”.
