Irma Avilés

End Date: Mar 9, 2013 12:00 AM

In September of 2012, several staff members of Global Brigades participated in an unaffiliated brigade in the community of Santa Lucia. There they met a 20 year old girl named Irma. Although Irma was not a patient of a Global Medical Brigade, people were so touched by her story that Patient Referral decided to open a case.

As a child, Irma lived a healthy life until she started getting migraines at the age of 13. Even though she was able to receive medication for her migraines, they continued to persist. In October of 2011, she became pregnant and about 4 months into her pregnancy her migraines intensified and began being accompanied by vomiting. On July 18, Irma gave birth to a healthy baby without complications. However, 12 days after her daughter was born, she suffered her first paresis episode (the loss of voluntary movement of her muscles) in her upper right side. 24 days after this, Irma suffered another paresis episode except this time, she also experienced a seizure. Since then, Irma has been getting seizures which last about 10-15 minutes at a time.

On October 10, Irma and her family were finally able to go the the public hospital where she had neurological tests done and was diagnosed with Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM). AVM essentially means that the blood vessels in Irma’s brain are not distributed properly and therefore important brain tissue is not receiving the oxygen it needs to allow her to be a healthy woman and mother.

Irma needed surgery to correct this malformation which was the source of the migraines, seizures, as well as to avoid the AVM from bleeding (which can significantly raise the risk of brain damage or even a stroke).

Thanks to brigaders’ awesome contributions Irma was able to get this surgery and correct the original malformation that we fundraised for! A huge thank you to all that made this possible!

Contact Patient Referral program developer, Courtney Ferreira at courtney@globalbrigades.org with any questions!