In 2010, Picasso Rodrigues, 38 years old at the time, went out with friends to a cafeteria in Maringá, Paraná, to celebrate the promotion he had gotten at the telephone company where he worked.
“I gave money to a guard to keep an eye on my car and it was quiet. When I came back to leave, I got hit on the head and I don’t remember anything else.”
Picasso was found the next day at a construction site, his face completely disfigured by multiple facial trauma, which appeared to have been caused by a violent attack with a stone.
“The bricklayers found me with no apparent vital signs. I lost part of my left ear hearing and my vision, today I no longer have the ability to perceive details such as the features of someone’s face at a distance from two meters. , I was permanently without smell and taste”, he reveals.
Picasso underwent 22 surgeries and was hospitalized for three months.
“Everyone wants to hear from you in the first few days. After several weeks go by, just the family. It’s not that I didn’t have good friends, but the routine itself consumes people”, he says.
“When I finally got out of the hospital, I had trouble walking, and since I couldn’t drive because I couldn’t see well, I couldn’t work at the same job anymore. I couldn’t go back to who I was, I needed to reframe my life.”
That’s when Picasso began to reconsider an old childhood dream of becoming a doctor.
“This desire scared me a little, not even the sharp kids could pass the entrance exam, which is very competitive, and I was already 39 years old at the time.”
Enrolled in a preparatory course, he spent four years in a row dedicating himself to studies for the entrance exam.
“From the second year, I went to some universities, but my goal was to study at PUC Curitiba, so I kept fighting. But after some time, I decided to apply at UNOESC (Universidade do Oeste de Santa Catarina). , and in the same year, I went to visit my mother in Maringá. She encouraged me to try to get into the university, which was my first choice.”
Picasso got a place at PUC in Londrina, closer to his mother, in Maringá — but the following year, she died.
“A cardiologist who was coordinator of the course helped me transfer to the unit in Curitiba in January 2018. Then I could say that I had completely accomplished my life project.”
a new surgery
During the last two years of medicine, it is common for medical students to become more focused on practical experience, passing through different specialties.
“When I was working in the field of otolaryngology, I became friends with the residents, and after a while, they asked what had happened to my face — which was still very deformed.”
After some time, the doctors said that if he accepted, PUC and the Cajuru University Hospital, where the team worked, would like to aesthetically reconstruct his face.
“In January 2022, an extensive, nine-hour surgery was performed by my professor and my friends at the hospital where I am becoming a doctor, which is a partner of the university I always dreamed of getting into. It meant a lot.”
Gabriel Zorron Cavalcanti, Picasso’s professor, is responsible for the area of craniofacial surgery within the department of otolaryngology — and tells some details about the procedure.
“He had several plates from old surgeries that were infected and generating rejection, which were compromising the function of his face. As he had multiple fractures, those who tried to rebuild initially placed plates without the bone. [que já era inexistente] underneath, leaving the nose shapeless.”
The surgeon says that the face was opened again, the old plates were removed, and a vast cleaning with saline and antibiotics was done inside his face.
For the reconstruction, the most biocompatible material possible was used: a bone graft [parte do osso de outro local do corpo.
“Em casos de reconstrução de face, um bom material é a cartilagem da costela. Focamos não só na estética, mas em toda a funcionalidade do nariz — e fizemos uma reconstrução completa”, explica Buco.
Como aluno, ele afirma que Picasso é muito perseverante apesar de sua dificuldade aumentada por conta dos traumas que sofreu na face.
“Ainda assim ele consegue superar, em muito, a média dos estudantes”, afirma.
Depois da cirurgia, Picasso diz ter recuperado parte da sua autoestima perdida no ataque.
“Eu olhava no espelho e não me reconhecia. Hoje vivo procurando espelhos.”
O futuro como médico
Em menos de um mês, Picasso vai se tornar médico.
“Não foi fácil fazer faculdade na minha idade, com as limitações que eu tenho… Mas quando eu lembrava o que havia me levado até ali, tudo fazia sentido.”
No início do curso, o desejo era se tornar psiquiatra.
“Foram três as pessoas que me agrediram, mas [de acordo com as investigações], only one almost killed me. I went to college to understand what a psychopath would be, but in the course of classes, I learned other things that I fell in love with,” she says.
He decided to become a family and community doctor to “assist at the clinic, from the child to the grandmother, to get to know the reality of each one, and to help not only in physical health, but in the social spectrum of those people”.
“What makes me happy is that because I stayed in the hospital, and now I’m at the bedside, I understand that I can have some hope. My friends say, ‘You go to the hospital and you come back smiling.’ I don’t have sensitivity, but I’m happy to be able to contribute.”
Picasso says he tells his story to patients whenever he has the opportunity.
“I can see that it inspires people. A lot of people think, ‘This guy got all messed up and managed to make a dream come true. I think it works for me too.’
This text was originally published here.
I have over 3 years of experience working in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have been an author at News Bulletin 247 for the past 2 years. I mostly cover technology news and have a keen interest in keeping up with the latest trends in the industry. I am a highly motivated individual who is always looking to improve my skills and knowledge.
