Brazilian Model Mariana Bridi Da Costa Dies at Age 20

Recently I have been reading articles on the beautiful Brazilian model Mariana Bridi da Costa. The stories I read were surreal. We had a healthy 20 year old just a month ago with a bright career ahead of her who wanted to live. She was In the Miss Bikini International Competition last year and won first place for best in the swimsuit category. She was fourth in 2007 and 2008 in a contest that would have put her as the representative of Brazil in the Miss World Pageant. She certainly wasn't ordinary.

I must share that where our cousin's daughter was 16 she contracted a rare virus and almost died. A heart transplant saved and changed her life. Things happen which is why we have to cherish our health in whatever way we have it every day.

In any case it seems Mariana had necrosis. Necrosis is the deadening of tissue. I wrote an article about a wound in my mom's heel. The tissue around that would was necrotic i.e. dead and had to be on occasion scraped away. The cause of this is septicemia which is caused by a bacterial infection. In my mom's case it started with a simple skin tear that if noticed wouldn't have lead to necrosis. It caused a lack of blood flow that can lead to organ failure. Again in my mom's case since her circulation in her legs isn't good and her healing is still going on a year later.

Ms.da Costa wasn't as lucky as my mom. In December she started feeling sick and was deemed to be in septic shock which is caused by an inflammation. Like my mom da Costa's serious condition wasn't detected. She was thought to have a urinary tract infection. By the time the doctors realized it wasn't a UTI it had developed into septicemia. I pray to G-d that my daughter who is an M.D. is more alert to patients' problems.

I can't imagine what Mariana went through. First the doctors amputated her hands and then her feet because as I mentioned above those limbs were not getting enough oxygen and were dying. This could travel to her whole system so getting the limbs they hoped would prevent that.

Ms. da Costa had recently been on life support and in a coma. She woke up from it (Which isn't unusual - that happened to my dad for one week and then he slipped back into it.) and said she wanted to live. We all want to live but my dad was not able to say that so this was a special woman who persevered.

I would think she was worrying about her family who didn't have a lot of money. She was the family member who brought in the money. Diet pills and extreme diet were ruled out as a cause of this. I have to concur that she was not skin and bones.

Necrosis isn't known all that well but it seems that it is the 10^th leading cause of deaths in the United States. About 800,000 deaths a year are caused by something that it seems can be prevented if doctors are a bit more on tip of patients. Doctors know what happens when a person gets ill but they don't know about what causes it. Perhaps I am being unfair to doctors. Unlike my mom's case it seems that Mariana had no skin tears or anything that would appear to have caused her downward spiral.

Like a fever which is a response to an illness and not the illness itself sepsis is not the disease but a reaction to an infection that can cause the immune balance to fight against itself. Although men are the more likely victims like any autoimmune diseases women get them too. MS is more prevalent in women but men certainly get this autoimmune disease.

Necrosis (in Greek Νεκρüς = "dead") is the name given to premature or unnatural death of cells and living tissue. Necrosis is caused by external factors, such as infection, toxins, or trauma. Wikipedia.

Sepsis is a serious medical condition characterized by a half-body inflammatory state caused by infection. The body may develop this inflammatory response to microbes in the blood. The related layman's term is blood poisoning. Wikipedia.

My Guide to Pressurated and Ulcerated Wounds (with pictures

This article has been culled from many that I have read over the days.