CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Texas A&M - Corpus Christi in collaboration with Driscoll Children's Hospital will host the first ever Health Sciences and Technology Symposium.
One of the panelists invited is Margarita Velasquez, who will be sharing her survival story and the challenges she has faced.
Margarita contracted bacterial meningococcal meningitits when she was five years old and although 20 years have gone by, she remembers the moment that changed her life as if it were yesterday.
Margarita had been shopping with her mom and brother in Robstown, when she began to feel very ill.
"I said 'Mom, I don't feel good, my bones hurt'," Margarita said. "She said 'Don't worry, I'll finish up here and take you home and get you some medication'."
However, the symptoms worsened and she began to get purple blotches all over her body.
In a matter of hours, she was fighting for her life at Driscoll Children's Hospital.
"The hospital said we are gonna need an absolute miracle to save her because she is gonna die on us," Margarita said.
According to the doctors, Margarita had bacterial meningococcal meningitis. They said she possibly got it from a mosquito infected with the West Nile virus.
Margarita was in a coma for eight days but she held on. After undergoing several surgeries and physical therapy, she was finally able to go home three months later.
But as the doctors told her parents, the journey would not be easy.
"The doctors told my mom that I was gonna be a normal girl, but that I was gonna have scars and it was gonna take a lengthy healing process," Margharita said.
To this day, Margarita has had more than 100 surgeries and though the road ahead may be faced with obstacles, she chooses to continue the path through life with her head held high and with a lot of faith.
"I don't like to show favoritism or anything. I want to make sure I keep that same welcoming energy vibes and spirit through the people that I meet," she said. "(It) doesn't hurt to be nice in this world. It think it's very important to put a smile in your face cause you don't know who may need it in the community".
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