Medical miracle for Bellmore native Young woman with near-fatal mystery disease a medical mystery

      On July 2, Almeida first moved into her new home in Uniondale with boyfriend Charles Kuigg. That morning, Almeida complained of a cold; that evening, when Kuigg returned home, he found her passed out on the floor.
      After being rushed to Winthrop Hospital, Almeida regained consciousness. Other than a 102-degree fever, the doctors could find nothing wrong with her. All of her vital signs were perfect. She was kept for observation.
      By the next morning, doctors and emergency medics were fighting to keep Ludmila Almeida alive. The young woman who, only a few hours before showed symptoms no worse than a 24-hour bug, was now unable to breathe on her own. Lungs that appeared completely normal to doctors on July 2 had completely stopped working on July 3. She had gone comatose.
      Almost two weeks later, Almeida was still in her coma. The only change in her condition: the oxygen that she had been intubated with was now no longer enough to keep her tissues alive. She now required constant blood transfusions. Ludmila lay under 24-hour care, her mother at her side.
      Elana Jacobs of Bellmore, Ludmila's mother, never gave up. She was at her daughter's side almost constantly, urging her through the veil of consciousness to fight and begging God to save Ludmila's life.
      "The doctors had no idea what was even wrong," recalled Jacobs.
      "The chairman of Winthrop Hospital told me he had only heard of three prior cases similar to Ludmila's. Her body just stopped working. There was no explanation. They said they had to use process of elimination, and took every test imaginable, HIV, Lupus, diabetes, everything, and every one came back negative."
      By this time, no antibiotic had yet helped. Her blood was now septic, meaning that it was infected, although doctors could not say by what. And Ludmila Almeida had another major complication: she was pregnant.
      If Almeida died, there was a chance to save the baby, but if the baby died in the womb, Ludmila was also dead. She could not have survived the surgical extraction.
      "Every night I would ask the doctors, 'Will she survive the night? Will the baby live?', and every night the doctors told me the same thing: 'We wish we could tell, but we don't know.' Ludmila was a razor's edge from death, and we still had no idea what was causing it, despite Winthrop Hospital working around the clock, calling specialists, and doing everything humanly possible," said Jacobs.
      Adding to her agony, Jacobs said that Ludmila talked in her coma often, and what she said was sometimes a mother's worst nightmare.
      "She described being trapped behind a wall," remembered Jacobs, "but the absolute worst thing I ever heard came later, 'I have to get out of this hell, because this is where the soul dies.' Can you imagine what that's like for a mother to hear?"
      But a day later, Ludmila called out something else -- something that seemingly turned the tide. From the depths of her coma, she called out for apple juice.
      "After she called for apple juice a few times, I demanded that they give her some. They dipped a Q-tip in the small bottle of Gerber apple juice I brought, and she [ Almeida] attempted to suck it. They gave her more. It unlocked the door. From that time, she started getting better, much better," said her mother.
      Sitting in her mother's Bellmore home on Aug. 29, Almeida seems the picture of good health. Aside from a reduced, but recovering, lung capacity, the beautiful young woman of Brazilian descent bears little resemblance to one who was so recently close to death.
      "I thank God I'm alive. I really do believe it was a miracle," she said.
      "Now I just want to get back to my life. Of course, when I started getting better in the hospital, I tried," she laughed, "when I knew I was going to live, I pulled out all the tubes!"
      "She knew she was better. She didn't want the plastic in her lungs and veins anymore. The doctors disagreed...they kept having to replace the tubes and ask her not to remove them!" added Jacobs.
      No one involved doubted that what had occurred was miraculous. Even the doctors.
      "They told me that as doctors, they believe in science. But there is no scientific explanation for Mila's recovery. They called it an act of God. So did the doctors and practitioners in prenatal care. No one could believe that the baby survived. And not only survived, but they detected no complications from the ordeal!"
      Mother and daughter credit the recovery with a combination of three things: the incredible diligence of the Winthrop Hospital staff; the apple juice; and the chain of prayer that spread from the family to all corners of the world.
      "Never underestimate the power of prayer," stated Jacobs.
      "I work at JZANUS, a medical insurance company, and I work with people of just about every religion and culture. All of my friends and co-workers prayed, and asked their extended families to pray. There were people praying for Mila and her baby in India, China, Africa, South America...anywhere you can think of. And in Bellmore and all over the Island, so many churches and synagogues were praying for them. So much love, so much positive, divine energy...I truly believe that is what saved Mila."
      While not normally considered in secular Western circles, the concept of spiritual energy affecting the physical reality is almost universal among human cultures and religions, though the source of that energy varies with culture and theology.
      "She was at death's door so fast, and recovered so fast," recalled Nancy Romero, Kuigg's mother who shared the long ordeal with Jacobs and her son, Almeida's boyfriend.
      In next week's edition: Ludmila's recovery.