Karime Borja: I would like Mateíto to open his eyes tomorrow

Mothers on their knees achieve sons on their feet. So he repeats it daily Karime Borja Ansaldo, Queen of Guayaquil 2018, who since November last year has been installed in the hospital to accompany her son Mateíto Lapo Borja, who remains asylum after an accident at home, which keeps him in a coma.

Since then, although the reality would be that she is broken and inconsolable, she remains stronger than at any other stage of her life. She speaks slowly, cautiously and convinced that not only the doctors will make her son wake up completely healthy, but also relying on faith and decreeing that according to God’s times, he will get up without consequences.

“Mateíto had an accident, he drowned, that’s why many moms who have had this happen campaign for children to learn to swim from a very young age and for there to be fences in the pools at home so that if there is a carelessness, they children do not run to get in. That is what happened. Mateo drowned and was immediately taken to the hospital. He was 15 minutes without vital signs, thank God, only Him and the doctors, in the hands in which Mateíto fell, they revived him after being 15 minutes without signs and immediately he was transferred to the Roberto Gilbert hospital, and there All our doctors have been there, the earthly angels who have accompanied us in all this ”, Karime tells this newspaper.

According to Karime, “he is currently in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit), in intensive care. Mateíto at the beginning, due to the cerebral edema he was in an induced coma, then little by little and due to all the medical progress, now he is only in a coma, they have already removed all the sedatives and we are waiting for Mateo to wake up by his own means ”.

Mateíto has undergone, according to Karime, a decompressive craniectomy. “This surgery was performed because being in the water, we do not know the exact time it was, but a minute is enough for not enough oxygen to reach his brain, then his brain swells, so this creates brain edema. He has a part of his brain infarcted, thank God he is not brain dead, he has brain activity, although it is true he has this part of the brain infarcted, the first thing that happened the first week, his brain was swollen they had to do this craniectomy Decompressive, where the bones are removed from your forehead, to make it easier to understand, so that your brain has where to expand because your brain swells. So it is estimated that after six weeks these little bones can be put back in because there the brainiac, let’s say, would have already deflated a bit. Thank God, we were able to do this process after three weeks, we were able to put her bones in, this was her second intervention, that was last week. We can say that today, Mateíto has deflated his brain, almost 100% ”, Karime details about the 43 days, approximately, that he has been hospitalized.

During this time, his family and friends have been his unconditional support, as well as his followers on social networks, with whom he connects in different prayer chains in which they join to ask for the total healing of Mateíto, who a day before the accident turned 2 years old. “From my mother, who is there every day, my sisters, my uncles, my cousins, my whole family, and mainly by my side, my boyfriend, with whom in a month I am going to be one year old. I am separated from Mateíto’s father. My lover has been with me in this whole situation, he gives me calm, the one who tries to give me in this storm to give me peace of mind, to make me laugh, tries to be with me all the time. He is a doctor, every time they give me news he explains it better, he makes me understand the panorama better ”, he says.

“It has been a very hard road, very painful on a personal level because at the end of the day we are human and we are used to having quick results, so it is a path of great anguish. I would like Mateíto to open his eyes tomorrow, but I know that there are medical steps that we cannot skip above all so that when he opens his eyes he will be calm. He lacks many steps and sometimes as humans we cannot understand the divinity or the ways in which the Lord works. As much as I feel that I cannot take it anymore, I feel that my soul is torn into a thousand pieces, I feel that it is very difficult for me to wake up in the morning, it is impossible, most of all because I have to be the person who gives all the strength to Matthew. That is why when other mothers write to me, I tell them to surrender their anguish to the Lord, their fears to Him, so that the burden is a little lighter because I am convinced that if I had not given myself one hundred percent to Him, was on the floor ”, he emphasizes.

Mateo’s medical evolution

Karime also explains that according to the specialists, the day Mateo wakes up, they will only be able to find out about the progress and possible outcomes. “They always tell us that the day Mateíto wakes up will be day zero. The day he gets up, we will know how he gets up. Doctors always give you the worst scenario so that the best surprise you, then they always tell me that we do not know what percentage of Mateo will recover, if he will recover 100%, or 50% or less or more. So we don’t know how you wake up, whether you remember or not, in medical terms we don’t know your levels of consciousness, there is no way of knowing how you are going to wake up, what’s more, there are doctors who tell us that you may not wake up, that’s the least expected and we are talking about the worst case scenario. There are cases similar to those of Mateo in which they have woken up, there is no way to compare, when it comes to a child the diagnosis is much more complicated because, thank God, children have gigantic neuronal plasticity ”, Karime details.

Currently the left hand cannot move it much.

His life outside the hospital

Karime had finished a contract with two jobs, one in a channel as a sports presenter and another in a medical center in the administrative area.

He also has a hair-to-hair eyelash venture that he has not yet taken up due to Mateíto’s accident. “I have not opened it, I have only the project there, I was studying, I left my career in the middle, thank God the university is helping me, because I am a scholarship holder. I study psychology at the Casa Grande University. Thank God, today I can be with Mateo 24/7, I am planning to go back to work because I am convinced that when he leaves, he will need more things and I have to work to give them to him. I want that when Mateíto gets up he does not see a sad environment, but that we are well for him emotionally and financially ”, he refers.

Karime was queen of Guayaquil in 2018. Before ending her year in office as sovereign, she announced through the organization of the contest that she was pregnant with Mateo. This situation also caused the contest regulations to be modified, now allowing women who are mothers to participate.

In July 2019, the support provided by Mayor Cinthya Viteri for Karime to end her term and not have to renounce the title due to her pregnancy status also went viral on networks.

“Mateíto has changed all aspects of my life, I say that I was born three times. Obviously when I was born to my mommy, the second time when I found out that I was pregnant, I was born again with Mateo in my womb, he completely changed the history of the reign of Guayaquil, today I realize that Mateo changed the The lives of many young people who also wanted to participate, how cool that he changed it, and today I am born again, because the day I received that call and got on my knees to ask God not to take away my son, that day I was born again because I understood many things, because that day they recovered their vital signs artificially, because that day they gave us the news that Mateíto’s heart was beating by itself, a miracle of God. Everything that has happened with Mateíto is a miracle ”, he reiterates.

Karime continues to unite and add more people in prayer chains for her son’s recovery. (I)