{"id":48165,"date":"2021-03-05T18:12:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T01:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/young-covid-19-survivor-wins-hearts-at-new-mexico-hospital\/"},"modified":"2021-03-06T01:12:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-06T01:12:35","slug":"young-covid-19-survivor-wins-hearts-at-new-mexico-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/young-covid-19-survivor-wins-hearts-at-new-mexico-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Young COVID-19 survivor wins hearts at New Mexico hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Four-year-old
Four-year-old Stella Martin at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, where she spent eight months after contracting COVID-19.<\/span>Cassandra Yazzie\/Indian Country Today<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The recent celebration was spurred by 4-year-old Stella, a Din\u00e9 COVID-19 survivor, who was able to leave the University of New Mexico Hospital for the first time in eight months.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest with you \u2026 I have not seen a child leaving with a big ceremony like this. She was the first,\u201d said Dr. Senan Hadid, who was one of Stella\u2019s doctors.<\/p>\n

While Stella made a full recovery from the virus itself, the kind-hearted Albuquerque girl is expected to live with complications from her infection for many years to come.<\/p>\n

Stella now has a condition called acute transverse myelitis, which has left her paralyzed.<\/p>\n

The condition happens when the immune system attacks the spinal cord as a reaction to an infection. In this case, it happened as a reaction to a coronavirus infection.<\/p>\n

In addition, Stella lost her father, Stanford Martin, who was also Navajo, to COVID-19 last year.<\/p>\n

Her mother, Cassandra Yazzie, says in April, Stella ran up to her saying her back was hurting. Then Stella\u2019s body went limp.<\/p>\n

She was quickly transported to the hospital.<\/p>\n

\"Four-year-old
Four-year-old Stella Martin at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, where she spent eight months after contracting COVID-19.<\/span>Cassandra Yazzie\/Indian Country Today<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cShe tells everybody she loves them,\u201d her mother said. \u201cYou could be the meanest person in the world, but she\u2019ll break you down and say, \u2018I love you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Now her family is one of many across Indian Country whose lives have been changed from the dangerous virus. Stella\u2019s father is among more than a thousand Navajo citizens who have died, according to data from the nation.<\/p>\n

Cassandra Yazzie says her daughter\u2019s care at the University of New Mexico Hospital was \u201cvery, very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The facility is New Mexico\u2019s only dedicated children\u2019s hospital, treating more than 60,000 kids each year.<\/p>\n

The treatment Stella received was intensive and included neurology, immunology and cardiology teams, her doctor said. It also included care for her emotional well-being because it left Stella \u201cdeeply saddened\u201d to wake up and realize she no longer had mobility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried our best, not only with the medical part of things, but with entertaining and interacting with her,\u201d Hadid said. Nurses and staff kept her busy by bringing her toys, games and even an iPad so she could listen to songs from her favorite movie: \u201cFrozen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stella even made friends in the children\u2019s hospital, her mom remembers. She would frequently say hello to another patient who walked past her room. One day, she gave him a bracelet.<\/p>\n

This spirit is what made the hospital staff very fond of Stella.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe felt like a child to me, like my own child, not a patient anymore,\u201d Hadid said. When the time came for Stella to go home last month, he had the honor of pushing her in her wheelchair to the elevator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say half the staff from the UNM pediatrics department were there on that day. They were so happy to see her getting out of here finally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stella\u2019s mom says she hopes her daughter gets up, \u201cstarts walking and proves everybody wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever is out there, we\u2019re still gonna be positive,\u201d Yazzie said. \u201cShe\u2019s only 4 years old, and she\u2019s inspired so many people already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mother has set up an Instagram account for Stella to document her journey.<\/p>\n

Her advice for other parents is to be really cautious with their kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOVID is not a joke \u2026 and it does affect kids in so many different ways,\u201d Yazzie said. \u201cAnd even if COVID wasn\u2019t going on, cherish your kids. They are very, very precious. That\u2019s what my dad always told us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadid advises everyone to follow the precautions set out by health officials, including properly wearing a mask, washing your hands, social distancing and traveling only for absolute emergencies.<\/p>\n

He added that Stella is a patient he will remember, leaving her with a message: \u201cStay strong and come back only to visit us. You\u2019re not allowed to get sick again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stella\u2019s family has set up a GoFundMe page to pay for medical bills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four-year-old Stella Martin at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, where she spent eight months after contracting COVID-19.Cassandra Yazzie\/Indian Country Today The recent celebration was spurred by 4-year-old Stella, a Din\u00e9 COVID-19 survivor, who was able to leave the University of New Mexico Hospital for the first time in eight months. \u201cTo be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48165"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}