Stephenie Rodriguez · 55 min
After surviving cerebral malaria with a 2% chance of survival, losing both feet, and enduring 53 medical procedures, Stephenie Rodriguez turned catastrophic loss into a global mission to impact one billion lives.
Hear this story
Stephenie Rodriguez was 50 years old, building a global safety app and working toward a goal to impact one billion lives, when three mosquito bites in Nigeria changed everything. Two weeks after leaving a conference there, she collapsed at Boston airport with cerebral malaria at 8% of her blood volume. Her organs failed. The doctors gave her a 2% chance of survival and asked her family to prepare for the worst. When she woke in the ICU, paralysed and unable to move, her 13-year-old son told her something that became her north star: life is 10% what you're given and 90% what you do with it. That phrase, borrowed from Viktor Frankl, became the directive she needed to commit to recovery every single night.
Stephenie spent months in hospital during COVID lockdown, isolated and reduced to a patient number on her wrist. To hold onto her identity, she wrote 38 affirmations every morning and evening. She refused amputation when a doctor offered to remove both her legs from the knees down, instead fighting through two years of surgeries and stem cell treatments until the reality became clear: the bones were dead. Losing her feet meant she could finally walk again. Through it all, she danced with Beyoncé in her head, watched her body rebuild itself, and refused to let this near-fatal illness define her as anything but what came next.
Today, Stephenie is a bilateral amputee, a para fencer representing Australia, and an ambassador for the Global Fund working to eradicate malaria. The catastrophic loss became the vehicle that gave her access to global platforms she could never have reached alone. She built a para fencing program from nothing, recruited other disabled athletes, and became the first Australian woman to represent the country in international para fencing since 1968. She lives her eulogy every day, knowing she is living on borrowed time.
“I always go, if I'm breathing, I'm achieving, it's a good day. Even if I'm in pain, on my worst pain day, I'm still alive.”
“Mom, life is 10% what you're given and 90% what you do with it.”
“Cerebral malaria is the apex predator to humans. Mosquitoes are the Uber drivers and we are the restaurants.”
The hero, today
Stephenie Rodriguez set a goal to impact one billion lives in 2025, and the near-fatal malaria that nearly took her life in Boston airport actually became the vehicle that gave her access to global platforms and organisations like the Global Fund to pursue that mission. When she woke paralysed in hospital, her 13-year-old son told her that life is 10% what you're given and 90% what you do with it, and she used that as her directive every single night to commit to recovery no matter what her body could or couldn't do. She refused a doctor's offer to amputate both her legs from the knees down, choosing instead to fight through two years of surgeries and multiple interventions until her medical team and she accepted that the bones were dead and amputation was necessary to regain her mobility. During months of isolation in hospital during COVID lockdown, she wrote the same 38 affirmations every morning and every evening to hold onto her identity as Stephenie Rodriguez when the medical system reduced her to a patient number on her wrist. The decision to say yes to para fencing when a coach saw her potential led her to become the first Australian female to represent the country in international para fencing since 1968, and she has now helped build a program that will give young disabled athletes like a 13-year-old girl the chance to compete.
Yes. Stephenie Rodriguez is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Stephenie Rodriguez set a goal to impact one billion lives in 2025, and the near-fatal malaria that nearly took her life in Boston airport actually became the vehicle that gave her access to global platforms and organisations like the Global Fund to pursue that mission.
When she woke paralysed in hospital, her 13-year-old son told her that life is 10% what you're given and 90% what you do with it, and she used that as her directive every single night to commit to recovery no matter what her body could or couldn't do.
She refused a doctor's offer to amputate both her legs from the knees down, choosing instead to fight through two years of surgeries and multiple interventions until her medical team and she accepted that the bones were dead and amputation was necessary to regain her mobility.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 00:03
Welcome to the Grit Diaries with Mon and Maz, a place where we share real stories meets real transformation. Each episode, we share the journeys of everyday people who's faced life's hardest moments and found their way to hope, healing, and purpose. May their courage inspire you and in the world around you. Let's get inspired. Hey audience, you are about to hear one of the most inspiring speakers that I have ever spoken to, Stephanie Rodriguez. You're listening to Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace with Mona Maz. And Stephanie, you're in for a ride of your life. My goodness, so many lessons out of her story today that will totally inspire you. She describes herself as the mahler of malaria. She suffered as a double amputee, but what she's done with her story of grit and turned it into grace will blow your mind away. She's a digital goddess. She's an ambassador for so many very important causes, even a Paralympian. Steph, you can't miss her. She really is an impressive lady. She's ambassador for Global Fund and also for the Women's Resilience Center. Please tune in to listen to Stephanie Rodriguez. Welcome to Consigui Heroes and Radio Northern Beaches. I just want to say, I don't know how lucky I am really, because I've got Stephanie Rodriguez here. Maz, welcome. Lovely to see you again. And this is Grit Diaries, Grit to Grace. And we are so fortunate today, aren't we, Maz? Ah, this is going to be an absolute treat for everybody. Lots to lean in here today and lots to learn. Yeah, we have Stephanie Rodriguez, who is in my mind a resilience warrior. And I was lucky enough to meet Steph about 4 years ago as the Women's Resilience Center had just begun. And we are so grateful to have Stephanie Rodriguez as an ambassador for our center. But she has done so much in her life, and she is an absolute advocate for innovation around technology. She's part of the Women in Tech Global Network. She founded an incredible app for keeping women safe called Wondersafe, and she's been keynote speaker, a TEDx speaker, an ambassador for the Global Fund organization. She is a digital goddess, and an architect and an award-winning digital marketer. There's so much to you, Steph, and I just want to thank you for investing a bit of time with us.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 03:00
Oh, it's wonderful to be here.
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During months of isolation in hospital during COVID lockdown, she wrote the same 38 affirmations every morning and every evening to hold onto her identity as Stephenie Rodriguez when the medical system reduced her to a patient number on her wrist.
This conversation includes the mission to reach a billion lives, from new york to the tech bubble, nearly raped in an elevator, three mosquito bites in nigeria, seizure at boston airport and waking up paralysed with tubes everywhere.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 03:02
Yeah, so wonderful. So why don't we hear a little bit about you? You've had the most incredible journey at a resilience level, and I know you so well, but I, I was reading again all your articles and thinking about, you know, the very cause and what happened to you going to Africa for the cause of women with Wanda Safe. And yeah, I'll leave it to you to share a little bit about your story.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 03:29
Oh, thank you. Well, the first thing is, you know, I'm on a mission to impact 1 billion lives, and I set a time because I believe in SMART goals that I wanted to achieve this impact goal of 1 billion lives in 2025. And I don't know if I'll hit it or I won't because I don't know every ripple effect of every action, every conversation, every podcast, every interview. Every nurse that sees me in the hospital that goes and tells my story to someone else. So I won't clearly be able to know if I hit that number, but we can talk about the Global Fund and how I'm doing that a little bit later. But I am born in New York. I'm Puerto Rican by descent, so I'm a Latina. I grew up in a disadvantaged household in the United States, lower middle class, public schools. I was emancipated at 16 and moved out of home and had to work in a diner from 10 at night till 6 in the morning to just graduate high school. So I started fighting for my life very early and really had no choice but to navigate through an adult system and make really good decisions. Like, I went to Job Corps in America, which is really— they take young kids who otherwise might go into detention centers and put them into universities and programs and do job education. When I was 18, I chose uni and went off to university and studied business, but I always had a passion for technology and that led to me, you know, working in marketing, working in sales, working in business, and then having this innate curiosity. I met my ex-husband in '97 in Los Angeles who was from Adelaide and he brought me to Australia in 1997 and that really began my, my life as an Australian and living here since then. So I am pleased to have dual citizenship, but I feel very Aussie in my heart and I'm grateful for for being here. And I started one of the first internet companies in Darwin, built some websites for the Australian government in 1998. I was hired by CMGI outta Boston and went and worked in the tech bubble in 2000. So as we say in the land of hip hop, I'm an OG of tech having been in it for 25 years, working in the bubble, you know, working, watching things evolve. And I'm really passionate about being a solutions architect, which allows me to see business problems and real-world solutions, or what we have now and what we can do in the future, and bring it all together. And it was in that work I was doing on major projects with very large corporations like Club Med, like Sydney Airport, a lot of work in Asia Pacific in the SSP, flying all over the world as a businesswoman and nearly getting raped in an elevator in 2015. That was my aha moment to creating an app for to empower women and vulnerable people. So, you know, there are a lot of vulnerable people, including disabilities and, and those who are of the LGBTQ community that fit into that vulnerable space. So we created this app called Wander Safe, which was allowing people to be able to, one, signal if they were in trouble discreetly, have their loved ones or their business or coworkers or flatmate know in 10 seconds that they were in trouble and then know where they were accurately anywhere in the world within 3 meters using some integrated technology. So if you Google WanderSafe and look where we grew from 2016 when we founded the company to what we delivered and built, I then developed a small device that was a personal safety device. I drew it with the help of a retired CIA safety officer, which was to allow for— to deflect and reduce physical harm such as rape or, you know, robbing or, or any of these like physical harassment outside the home, 87%, by having a light, sound, strobe, and a USB button, an SOS button that would trigger the app. And I created it, and I found a factory in China. We built it, developed it, sold it into duty-free. I got our first sale in 2018, won Best New Accessory in the travel industry in 2019. And, you know, that commitment to impacting 1 billion lives began, and I publicly said it in April of 2019 at a UN meeting in Geneva. Wow. And I— every time I would be interviewed, I would start with my premise and my promise and my impact goal as the first words out of my mouth. And I said it a bunch of times in 2019. And so that led me to an organization called HIVE. I went to Nigeria. Because the HIVE Africa was holding their annual conference there, but also because Nigeria at the time had 10,000 women and girls a day being sexually assaulted, a day, in their country of 290 million people. That is just too many, and they had a need. Australia at the time was in denial about its problems with sexual and domestic violence. Oh, we don't have a problem, let's not talk about it, you know, be the neighbors calling the police. So very hard to convince a country that wasn't quite ready to accept that it had imperfections that it did. But I found markets like Africa and India that there were millions and millions of these problems that we could solve by going in. My app is free. It's been downloaded in 57 countries, and we were developing product and selling it to companies like bookings.com, Revlon for their traveling training hairdressers, Deloitte for their traveling female accountants. So very B2B. My trip took me in September to Nigeria for a week and then on to India. I came home back to Canberra where I was living at the time and flew to Boston. And exactly 2 weeks to the day from my very last speaking engagement in Nigeria, I was in the Boston airport with my best friend Liz, and I had a seizure and became unconscious just 1 hour before I was to board the flight from Boston to Sydney and Sydney— LA-Sydney. And was ambulanced unconscious out of Massachusetts at Logan Airport and to Massachusetts General, the Harvard teaching hospital. And I declined critically quickly and rushed to ICU where I was in acute septic shock and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. And one of my business colleagues, one of my investors, Dr. Zachariah Turner, who does a lot in the wellness space in the media, is one of my investors from WanderSafe, but he's also a close friend. And it was him who told the Harvard doctors to test me for parasites because he knew my business activity and said, just screen her. And it was he who told them. And when they did, they found out that cerebral malaria was 8% of my blood's volume. And I had complete organ failure— liver, kidneys, heart— because my body couldn't process that toxic parasitic blood through my organs. And very quickly they said, You know, while they didn't know what was wrong with me, while they didn't have the anecdote, she's going to die. So I was 3 times— my family, my 13-year-old son at the time was flown from Canberra to Boston to say goodbye to his mother. They were asking Liz whether she'd like to take me home in a box or in a jar and pricing. Uh, the Australian High Commission was on— like, everybody was not expecting me. I had a 2% chance of survival.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 11:08
And you survived beyond.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 11:09
And I woke up. And when I did, though, I was completely paralyzed. And I remembered when they extubated me, they took the tubes out of my throat finally. You know, the first words were, who the heck gets malaria? Because for everything I was fighting for, biohazards were not part of the things I was afraid of. Yeah. So it was, you know, 3 mosquito bites on my left ankle was all it took. You're kidding. No, cerebral malaria is the apex predator to humans. Mosquitoes are the Uber drivers and we are the restaurants. It's very simple. A child dies under the age of 5 every minute from malaria in the world and continues to. And that's just under 5 mortality rate, not adults, not everybody else, but just kids under the age of 5, a minute, one every minute. And we haven't done enough to eradicate malaria. And I didn't, you know, a lot of people go, really, that's a malaria can do that? Well, yeah. And we're very uninformed because the, those who are most widely impacted by malaria are those people versus us in Western societies that have fly screens, quite simply.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 12:24
Your story too was like, you know, you were weeks you'd left Africa and you were traveling in the States, luckily close to a very good hospital, Harvard.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 12:34
Exactly.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 12:35
And the fact that you said in the time that you were staying in Africa, you were only stepping out from time to time.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 12:40
You didn't, you know, it was just like, I didn't go on safari, didn't sit by the pool. I was so terrified because, you know, even though I was there for a conference, I was the only person who looked like me, the only non-African, blonde-haired, blue-eyed individual that stood out like a sore thumb in an area that if 10,000 women and girls were getting sexually assaulted and I was there unaccompanied, I didn't bother to go anywhere I didn't need to. And I stayed in the hotel and went upstairs and downstairs and upstairs and downstairs in a con— like we do at conferences. But on the last day, I had a speaking engagement outside the hotel, and they asked me to go outside and take photos with the delegates. It was 6 o'clock at night. And you know how big group pictures are where the photographer's going, okay, you guys move in and okay, I want you to put your hands up, like all that stuff. So I'm standing on my mark, standing there waiting for everybody to do everything else and 3 mosquito bites on my left ankle and, you know, just didn't get aroguard in enough places. And you know, that was it. But I look at it, Simone, as my fate. It certainly pivoted me into a position that allowing me to achieve the impact goal I set. I think the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, whatever you believe in, you know, heard my commitment and my ask. And I said, I want a billion. And they went, that's a pretty big check to write. There's some tax to this. You want big impact? You got to do big things. And what I was doing by itself would have never given me the opportunity to deliver on that impact goal if I didn't go through what would yet become my journey.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 14:28
Yeah. And I think it's worth highlighting when you talked about the stepping stones to that, it was about a 2-week incubation period. Yes. You were in Boston, so you were near the University Hospital. Had you got on that flight, you wouldn't be here because game over.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 14:47
My heart would have exploded upon pressurization.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 14:49
So given that it didn't happen prior, it happened right when it did, an hour before you're about to board the plane. You're actually at the airport.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 14:57
We could see the plane. We saw our luggage being going up the conveyor belt to the plane.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 15:01
Wow.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 15:02
Like the nick of time, if you would. The sliding doors moments, the synchronicity is something that, you know, when I look back over the journey, It's, you know, every brick behind me is exactly in situ as it should be. Yeah.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 15:20
And not to labor these points, I know that you've got so much that we really want to unpack and just the volume of what you've already spoken about is just unprecedented. It's incredible. I can't wait to hear more. But for our listeners and our viewers, what part did you feel that you, you know, you talked about, you know, that it all kind of got lined up, you know, one, you know, it's like careful what you wish for because you You're getting what you asked for and that reflects more of you than you ever anticipated, but you really sort of drawn that in and you've made it, well, this is how it's going to be and this is, you know, how I'm going to make that impact. What part do you feel that, you know, whatever you like to call it, the universe, that someone's, you know, watching all this and co-creating with you, if you like?
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 16:08
Well, in just in my journey, I mean, even not digging into my childhood or my early adolescence or how I got through university, but having to to be a fighter from an early age. And I think we can teach resilience, and resilience might evolve in what that looks like based on life stage. But having to make a conscious choice in my head that it was going to be either go good way or go a bad way, like the circumstances were going to come at me. And I don't know. I've always said it's the prayers of my grandmother, God rest her soul, because she prayed for all of us and all of her grandchildren every single day. She was a strong woman of faith. She lived to 97, and she had 8 children.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 25:06
I had zero.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 25:07
And in order to want to get out of that bed and commit to doing whatever it was going to take, whether it was every night working out with Beyoncé as my personal life coach virtually in my ears, which is basically what happened, but But I had to go back in my head, go back in the past, reconcile, apologize, forgive myself, get through the shame, and make a new decision as to what I was going to do moving forward. In the documentary, you know, she sings a song called "Sorry." And, you know, there's a verse at the end of the song that talks about her being her own best friend. She's like, "You did this to me. You know, now I'm doing this, but, you know, I'm not making apologies anymore." for being my true and authentic self. And that hit so home for me that that was what I had to do in that reconciliation to making the choice. And I called a woman who's very spiritual, who's Jamaican in Miami. And when I was from the hospital, I told her about it. And she said, Steph, I can only tell you this. She said, where you are at, you are on a bridge. The universe builds us bridges to take us where we need to be. The divine takes us on a pathway to being where we need to be. It does not work against us. We may not see what and why. So she said, you may be on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, or on an Indiana Jones bridge in the middle of Africa that's made of wood and rope, and it's missing planks. And you can't see the alligators through the fog and how far down it goes and what you are walking over. So the— what trials would befall you on that bridge? She goes, I cannot tell you. I can't tell you how long the bridge is, but I can tell you when you get to the other side, you have clarity and that you will know what you went through was to serve you so that you could self-actualize as you're meant to in this lifetime.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 27:12
Yes.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 27:13
And that stuck with me so profound. You know, I was on a bridge and sometimes it was smoother than others. There was a lot of Indiana Jones going on during COVID being locked up. I mean, to date, you know, Mom, I've had like more than 550 nights in the hospital and 53 procedures, including the one I had last week, you know, and losing both of my feet in 2021, becoming a bilateral amputee. Becoming permanently disabled at 50, you know, that's life-changing stuff. In addition to all my missions and visions and how I wanted to change the world, joining the disabled community has been something that has also been, you know, a really powerful twist of the story that I hadn't been expecting but would be a result of not being able to fix what the damage of those drugs out on my body to save my life. They actually are the— my reason for needing to have my amputations, lose both of my feet because they were dead. And now I suffer from dead bones. You know, I'll be more bionic from the waist down in the next 10 years than I will actual bone. Wow. Having replaced major joints, hips, ankles, legs, knees.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 28:30
And I can't believe your optimism when I saw you just this week in hospital with your 53rd operation, and you, you were still optimistic because you were saying, well, I'm lucky because I am just sending so many good positive beams into my body that my body is just trying to reproduce itself. And yeah, you can probably, being a nurse, Maz, you can understand exactly the words for it. But Steph, honestly, I could listen to you all day, but they just hearing you talk about Finding in your own learnings around what, you know, the fact you hadn't cared for yourself and looking at all the things and dealing with shame and looking at guilt and all these emotions that we all need to deeply process to make us better human beings. But you had on top of that now with this disability of losing your feet, and also you were so speedy in getting the bionic feet like that. I think that's record as well. I know my brother was a double amputee above the and he could just never, you know, embrace the technology like you have.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 29:35
When I got into the NDIS program and we also reached an impasse after 38 surgeries on my feet and being hospitalized during COVID extensively, like months at a time with no visitors. That was probably the second hardest part was the isolation piece. But I got— you do a lot of thinking when you're by yourself, when the world is quiet. And you are, you know, stripped of all of our niceties, our— the comfort of our home, our friends, the busyness we have on getting dinner or picking up the dry cleaning, like how we stay mentally busy, somebody's birthday, you know, you're, you're just sitting there. And I know everyone was equally learning their new normal during COVID but their new normal was very different than mine because I couldn't get out of bed.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 32:40
Yeah. That's the reason why we have this glamorous covering. Yeah.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 32:44
Yeah. Because you shouldn't see your own bones. And my fingertip, my bone was sticking out because of— they left the oxygen monitor during the sepsis coma, and it deadened my right hand. So I have a limb difference in my fingertips, you know, seeing my heel bones exposed and nothing would heal them. You know, it was very frustrating. It was very disappointing to get the verdict like, we can't fix this after a year and many multiple surgical interventions to just try. But I believed, you know, in the best outcome, and we did all we could. But, you know, it wasn't to say that losing my feet to gain my mobility. 2 years in a wheelchair after not growing up in one was very difficult. And even just navigating your way as a disabled person, going from able-bodied one day to manually trying to push a wheelchair, was a totally different life. And I just wanted to walk. I just wanted my legs back.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 33:39
Yeah. And would you say, too, something that you mentioned, Steph, was You know, you, you were, had wanted to create big impact. You wanted to impact 1 billion lives, but yet you also had that knowing that you had in amongst all of this and everything that you'd had to go through, there was that piece that neglected oneself and self-care. And didn't this, when you were talking, for me, I was hearing everything got stripped right back, like literally stripped back, like even on a physical sense, things were being flip back and it's like, you can do all this, but the missing piece is that permission to love yourself, permission to pour into yourself, permission to forgive yourself. I don't know. And when I hear you talk, it is, you are a woman on fire. You are a woman that was just, you are doing the inner work so that what you're taking out into the world is 1, 10 billion times more powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, I'm really aware of the people that are listening to your incredible story. When you talked briefly about having a challenged childhood and having to fight from a young age, that what they're witnessing through listening to you and watching you is a woman that has just— I've had the same challenges as you, but yet I have chosen to just, I'm on a mission. But along the way, you've also been gifted in a really difficult way to harness back that component of self-love and self-care and really sort of having that while you're also out in the world.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 40:59
Yeah. I just love that attitude. And I literally, you shared that with me the other day and I woke up the next morning and said, gonna have a good day. And I was only, I was thinking, Totally about you, Steph. It's such a good line. It is our choice to choose to be happy, to choose to be sad, to choose to be angry. And why not choose honey? So much easier, isn't it, than vinegar? So yeah, I just love that. So Steph, you charter so many, so many important causes, particularly the Global Fund for the cause of stamping out malaria. And, and I was interested to hear what you said. Is it 5,000 people every hour are dying in the world of malaria. Is that right?
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 41:43
No, no, a child a minute under the age of 5. But that's not anything related to, you know, the stillborn babies and above the age of 5 for deaths and fatalities in adults. So that's purely just the numbers we know on the under the age of 5. And, you know, the Global Fund, run by an Australian woman who is the chairman, Lady Roz Machua, she married the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, but She has a very strong involvement in the Australian Defence Forces, and that's how she got her ladyship. And I actually keynoted virtually the Rotary's Malaria Congress a couple of years ago. And she and Peter Cosgrove, they heard my keynote, which I filmed virtually because I was in Africa doing the TED Talk. And I was invited to the Global Fund's office in Geneva to have a meet and greet because they had heard about what I was doing with Rotary here in Australia. And I went in and Lady Roz, I had no idea who she was, sat in on that meeting with the head of partnerships and family offices. And they said to me, you know, your story's so strong. We need a champion because our next replenishment, and they raise money every 4 years. They work in partnership with the Gavi Foundation, which make the vaccinations that are important. And the Global Fund have 3 tenets. They have HIV, TB, and malaria, malaria being the biggest. So these are the 3 biggest killers, the 3 things that hold back the largest of communities and the largest economies. So these are their 3 tenets. And they said, would you be our changemaker? And I'm like, what does that involve? And they're like, well, we need somebody to be at these important positions to be able to tell presidents, prime ministers, and heads of state that determine what they're donating to the Global Fund. Australia is the number 12th donor. I can tell you Japan itself donates $1 billion. So you look at these economies and think of what they're— and how they're donating to creating global health infrastructure in 120 countries. Now, I said I had this goal of 1 billion lives in 2019 and repeated it. And I never thought that an organization like the Global Fund in Geneva would approach me to be their changemaker. And I tell people who don't understand what that means that I am the Malala of malaria. Yeah, very simple. Like, if you know Malala's story, that's my role with malaria. And I am at the service of the Global Fund this year. And, you know, even next week going to Parliament to address, you know, the Australian Parliament and talk about the need at a parliamentary breakfast. So, you know, I've been at the UN General Assembly. I've worked with people like David Beckham, had lunch with Chelsea Clinton at the Clinton Foundation lunch to talk about the importance of funding global health infrastructure. Where we're regulating markets for vaccines and creating equanimity in the partner programs. 120 countries, that's a lot of reach. And for every life I can change, for every dollar I can help them raise, that's where I'm going to hit my impact goal, Sim. And I won't know, but it's just given me the vehicle. So I said I wanted it. I stuck by it. I never lost sight of it despite all the facts, that long bridge, that process, the loss.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 46:55
You look good in white.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 46:56
Exactly. Like white's flattering. So I emailed the email address, you know, went along, expected to walk into a gym and find my people, find a community of disabled people that were there not because they were in the hospital, but there because they were working on a common goal of doing something, exercise, and to socialize. In the disabled community. And I walked in, or rolled in rather, well, walked, and I said, where's everybody at? And she said, well, you're the first. So after 3 lessons, she said to me, would you consider representing your country? And I was like, uh, not an athlete, I'm a businesswoman. And, you know, and she said, no, you're really naturally very good at this, and if you chose to, you could. And she didn't know because she, she was raising a very honest question about was I committed to the program or did I just want to do it recreationally. And you know, was it, you know, how we would go about this. And I said, yeah, if I had the ability to rehabilitate my body, to get back up and walk and to do all of these things under 4 years' time, when I said yes, I will represent Australia, I took it to heart. And I did everything I could to, you know, to infect others through my prosthetist, to tell other people on my social media, hey, Australia's a para fencing program, recruit team members, like on my own and through programs. So we actually managed to pull new people in. And I'm the first Australian female to para fence for the country since 1968 internationally. I'm ranked 37th of 74 in, you know, active para fencers in the world. And I did it in 2 years. I did a run-up for the Paralympics, but I'm really proud to be the cornerstone of the program that we now have the first competing young lady who's 13 years old, who will compete in the World Ability Sport Games alongside of me in Indonesia next month. And to see Australia build a program in a sport that you can do at whatever age. And, you know, ageism is really something. But to know that I helped to create a program. So in 2038, when Matilda is, you know, 18 plus and has been fencing for 9 years, she'll take gold and I'll know that I had something to do with her being there to give her a role model to look up to, to say anything is possible. So I really am very proud because that fighter in me that I never knew is now manifesting in different ways. I never saw myself as having the potential to be a competing para athlete. And here I am now, you know, looking forward to 2028 and competing and earning a spot in the Paralympics, you know, and I'll be in my late 50s. But, you know, you're never too old to learn a new trick. You're never too old to learn a new trick. And I'm excited to see the program prosper because I was brave enough to follow a challenge. And again, my coach had no idea what she was asking me when she asked me that, but she certainly saw that I was very, very serious. And if I said yes, I was going to deliver.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 53:47
Ah, I would just love to bottle that mindset and we'd be all very rich, wouldn't we, Maz? Bottle Steph's mindset and share it out across the planet. That's what we need to do. But thank you so much for your time. You rock and you really are a resilient woman. Resilience Warrior and the Mahler of Malaria. I like that. That's my new extra title about you. So thank you so much, Steph, for your time.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 54:11
Oh, thank you very much for having me. And, you know, people can follow me @digitalgoddess with 1 D and goddess on Instagram, so they can follow my journey through fencing, through life, and hopefully be inspired by the content that we share in the day-to-day of somebody who has, you know, seen recovery and hopes to be victorious it.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 54:30
Being on here, you're going to be impacting even more lives. So really appreciate your time, and I'll be replaying this. This will be a little bit of my Beyoncé, what it was to you. So thank you so much.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 54:41
You're welcome. Thanks, guys.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 54:42
Thank you, Steph. Thank you for joining us on The Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace. If today's story has moved you, share it with someone who needs a little hope. Remember, from grit we can find grace, and from grace we can find inspiration. Until next time, look for the joy, keep safe, stay grounded, and never forget that there is a strength within your own story.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 55:14
Take care.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 16:52
Wow.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 16:52
She, like, Puerto Rican, you know, we're Taino stock. But I always look back at every single peril I've been in, and I just know that the prayers of my grandmother were what gave me the unseen well beneath my feet when I thought I was tapped out. That was supporting me like roots of a tree. When we see a tree and we see how beautiful it is and thick and lush, or the width of the base of the tree, you have to know that exactly under that tree is the same infrastructure. It is not topical. And trees are great teachers. And I refer to trees a lot in my philosophy of life. But when we look at trees and we see how strong the trunk of a tree is or how it's prospering or thriving, we have to realize that there is equally that ecosystem in the unseen, not all that we see. So when I think about where were my roots, where was my sustenance, where was my strength, I have to believe that that was coming from places that were not purely in my control. And I do credit the prayers of my grandmother and to influence the choices I made to wanting to be the best version of myself, to be a good example for my siblings. And to, you know, to do the best I had with what I had and make the best decisions. Yeah.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 18:14
And I just love you tapping into, you know, they talk about awe, right? And how when we get inspired, when we see something bigger than ourselves, you know, like, uh, looking at the ocean or the sun going over the desert, when you feel small, you feel big. And just listening to you talking about the impact of your grandmother, I had a grandmother like that too. She had such such an impact on me. And I think we sometimes, living in nuclear families, forget the power of, of our ancestry, right? And I just love what you're saying about your beautiful grandmother.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 18:50
And I didn't meet her until I was in my 20s. Like, she knew of me, but she didn't meet me. So this was all going on just behind the scenes. But when I finally met her in 2017, we had a family reunion of 70 of us in New York, and she was there. And to meet my son and introduce my son to my grandmother, you know, and bring 3 generations and multiples into that discussion, 4 generations, was so powerful. But, you know, she spoke and she said it. And then for all of the families that had never met me because I've been in Australia for so long, you know, to get to stand up and say, you know, I firmly am grateful for those prayers and for being remembered even when I wasn't present, you know, that I look to and there's no other explanation for it. There's no, there's no other way around it.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 19:36
Like So there you are in this hospital with cerebral malaria. Talk through a little bit more about that situation and, and really what were some of the key significant moments for you?
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 19:50
Well, as I mentioned, I got extubated in the ICU, asked what the heck has happened and why is everyone here and looking relieved and terrified, like the energy of my family. They would come in and cry when they saw me., and I was paralyzed. Everything, every muscle in my body had fallen off of me, and I couldn't scratch my own nose. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm awake. I've got stuff to do. I'm meant to be in the Congo for a women's event in November. This is October. Like, I got stuff to do, but my body was not going anywhere. Yeah. And it was a very harsh reality. And my feet. So I went into, because of the toxicity of my blood, I went into complete septic shock, severe septic shock. And if you know anything about sepsis, in treating sepsis in those, you know, she's got 3 minutes to live, call the priest, say your prayers, it's game over, which happened. My family had a DNR, do not resuscitate, on me because they figured if my brain wasn't responding and my body gave out, like, God wants her, let her go. So they said, there's one thing we can do. We can give her vasopressors, which are adrenaline cocktails, and that would shove, by way of a decision, all of the blood, forcing it like a pump through my heart, liver, and kidneys to keep them moving when they wanted to not work anymore. But they warned my family in a quorum that if they did this— and again, it's, we've got minutes here, make a decision— if we do this, she will have permanent and irreversible damage, and we don't know what that's going to look like. And they went, "Sort it out. Just do it. Like, what have we got to lose? Whatever we can try, you know, let's throw everything at it." So they did. And, you know, 3 times in going through this, when I woke up, my right hand was bandaged, my 2 feet were bandaged, my toes were hanging out of the, out of the bandages and they were turning purple. I couldn't move anything. And it was uncertain as to what had happened during that trauma and then what kind of results would be kind of in that recovery. But, you know, not being able to get up. Even though my brain was awake, my body wasn't cooperating. I couldn't scratch my own nose. I couldn't take myself to the toilet. I'm a single mom, and my son was 13 and at the time flown to my bedside, and he'd seen me in ICU on complete life support with 11 liters of fluid in me and something called methylene blue. So I look like a blue Michelin Smurf. Like, this is what you walked in and you saw. And I've seen photos. Like, it's confronting that this was me. But when, you know, he was by my bedside, I was crying and I said, son, I don't know how I'm going going to take care of you. And, you know, like, I don't know what the future holds because I don't know enough about me to know enough about what this journey is going to look like. And you're 13. And he said, Mom, life is 10% what you're given and 90% what you do with it. And that was like a mic drop moment. He was actually quoting Viktor Frankl, you know, The Meaning of Mankind, written in 1938. And I'm like, Where do you get something like that at 13? You know, what was the origin of his thought? But for me, it was kind of a, you know, from the mouth of babes come words of wisdom. It was kind of like him giving me this choice directive that I would internalize because every single night they'd chase my family off at 7 and I'd be on the ward by myself. And my aunt had sent me a text because we're Latinas. We're actually people of color, brown people. And she said, Beyoncé's performed at Coachella. And we're all— we love Latin music and hip-hop, and my son's a rapper and I'm an ex-DJ. So she said, you should check it out. And so I watched it and I watched the full 2 hours of her being the first woman of color at Coachella to perform, which was historical. And so I said to my son, put my AirPods in my ears. I want to watch it again. And so this would go on every single night, and I would, in my head, dance and sing with Beyoncé the entire show. I knew every step. I knew every pop. I knew every note, you know, like, again and again and again. And while I was doing this in my head, I was actually willing my body to return to strength. So in a very short period of time, you know, I was able to use this as something to fixate on. But really, you know, in saying this, about, you know, what it was going to take for me to get to a place that I felt I would love myself enough. Because I have a TEDx talk, and I hope you share the link in this, but that, you know, I talk about how I hadn't been a great person of self-care in my entire life. I'd been a fighter. I'd been a soldier, but I didn't fight for myself enough. And I allowed people, situations to take advantage of me, to put me in very disadvantaged positions. That had I have loved myself enough and honored myself, I would have made different choices. And here I was lying on my back with tubes in my body to handle every bodily function. I had zero agency, Simone.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 30:20
Yeah.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 30:20
I didn't leave the room. You know, there was no one coming to see me. There was no change of routine. So every day was Groundhog Day. And you know how I got through it was every single morning I'd get up and there were 38 affirmations that I had, and I'd start my day by a notebook and write all 38 of them out. And then at the end of the day, when I was giving gratitude for my day, I would write them again so that I never lost my reinforcement of who I was, despite the fact that I'd lost all my labels. I lost all my— I wasn't a mother, sister, lover, friend. Anything to anybody, CEO. I was just the patient number on my wrist for such a long time that that was my identity. You know, they wouldn't even call me by my name. They'd say, okay, miss, what's your patient number? Before they gave me meds or when they had to come in and take blood. So losing my sense of agency during those times, you know, was really, you know, kind of pivotal to, you know, the internal work I needed to do in order to be who I am and be where I am. And believing that my body would generate— the first doctor who looked at me in 2019 in Canberra Hospital, I call him Dr. Haxall in my references and my writing, because all he wanted to do was cut me off from the knees down, and my toes were turning black in my heels. And to lose one fourth of my body in one go, both sides, I was like, no, you have not proven to me that my body will not regenerate. And give me reason enough to believe I need to cut off my legs from the knees and lose a fourth of my body's length for no reason. And just flatly refused. And that sent us on a journey to working with a different orthopedic surgeon versus a vascular who tried to regenerate. But we just got to a point where, you know, the bones were dead in my heels. And no matter what we did, stem cells, we threw everything at it but voodoo, and nothing worked. And at that point when the skin wouldn't close around the bones. So seeing your own bones Mon, I don't recommend— I don't recommend anyone ever see their own bones because it's a really horrific situation. And if you're in there, you've got really major stuff wrong. And I think, you know, Marianne, you'll agree, if you see your own bones, you're really stuffed. That's no bueno.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 35:21
Well, it was the conversation that I think, you know, Mon and I were having in hospital the other day because the nurses, everyone's very curious about me because I have such a unique situation. I'm the first bilateral osseointegrated female amputee in Australia. So So if you see me, you see me and you can't mistake, there's not another one. Wasn't like me at the time. There's another woman now in Sydney who is a bilateral above ankle osseointegrated amputee. And we're very different. We do different things. But you know, if you see me, you know, you see me. So in the hospital, every time I've gone back, I see some of the same nurses. I see some of the same staff. They're like, what are you doing back here? How you going? You know, it's lovely that I'm on a first, you know, name basis with my medical team that see me on the wards repeatedly. But I know nurses and I feel for them because they get— and you would appreciate this— you can get some really grumpy people that don't make your job easy. And to go and get their energy when you walk in their room versus somebody who's positive and the day is not going to be great because it's not a day spa. I call the hospital the worst day spa ever.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 36:28
Yeah. But when I saw you, I was like, oh my goodness, Steph, you look like you're sitting in a day spa. You're just so glamorous and looking beautiful. I just love what you said.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 36:36
Of course, I make this reference to the hospital staff, you know, and again in hope of that impact mission. I mean, every single day when I wake up, before I open my eyes, I go, does something hurt? And usually it's something like my feet, my hips, my shoulder, like there's pain somewhere. But I'm like, thank tiny Jesus, because that means I'm still alive. So the next decision I make in that moment is, am I going to have a good day or a bad day? And it's literally like green pill, blue pill, whatever you like. It's just a choice. And when you say today's going to be a good day, it doesn't mean that you're not in pain. It doesn't mean that it's not raining right now outside. Like, the rain falls on all of us just the same. Pain situations. But it's how we decide to view what's going on. And our attitude is exclusively the thing that we choose. Yeah, it's a good day or a bad day. And I always go, if I'm breathing, I'm achieving, it's a good day. Even if I'm in pain, on my worst pain day, I'm still alive, I'm still here, I can still make an impact. I still get to watch my beautiful son grow up and become the man that I hope he becomes, and see my friends and make a contribution to those outside of myself. And it is in finding those purposes outside of ourselves that we make meaning. And it's very easy to sit and feel pity. And it would be very easy for me every day to go, you know what? Bad day. I'm not getting up. I'm not brushing my hair. I'm not taking a shower. I'm not going to put lipstick on. I'm not going to pick up the phone. I'm not going to do the laundry. I'm going to lie in bed and feel sorry for myself. And it's not to say that there's not that choice, but But even the choice is uniquely individual. So people also go, oh my God, but you have something that this— I don't think everybody can do. And I'm like, rubbish. I don't believe that. I believe that we all have the ability to choose our mental outcome. And we choose. And if you choose to have a bad day, I promise you, you will. And if you choose to have a good day, you find levity in the things that don't work. You find it funny when you can't zip the back of your dress because you don't have the right Fingers in there wrestling with zipper. Like, those are funny moments in my day when it takes me 25 minutes to put my shoes on because I can't get my prosthetics into the shoes I want to wear. And so I'm running late. Like, it's all comedy almost, but it doesn't make the pain go away, you know? And it's very interesting unconscious bias. And I think Simone, we were talking about this as well, you know, based on looks. And I get people who come up to me in supermarkets and public places or in airports when I'm in a wheelchair going to the plane and they go, oh my God, you're so beautiful. And I tell you what, the only thing that has changed about me is below the ankle. That's it. Like changing your shoes. And when you go from heels to flats, no one comes up to you and goes, oh my God, you look remarkable. But that, I mean, is such a minor Part of my body. But yet it compels people to have to make a statement which indicates what disability is perceived to be versus the reality of this situation. And when someone says it to me, I know that they are being sweet and they genuinely feel like they're paying me a compliment. But what I hear is, you think that disabled people people should look a certain way. Because I'm in pain, does it mean I need to look sick? How do I look sick? I'm not sick. I have pain. I don't have cancer and I'm not getting chemo. I'm living with chronic pain and disability. Like, there's a huge difference between having the flu and not having the flu. And I think a lot of people have the flu, you know, and when you do, you are in bed. You do look terrible, feel terrible. But, you know, living in chronic pain doesn't make it easy.. It just makes it a fact of life. Yeah. But I look at it like if I'm in pain, I'm still here. The day I wake up and I'm not in pain, I need to check out my surroundings, open my eyes and hope I'm sitting on a cloud, you know, because that's gonna be where I'll be the day that I wake up and I'm not in pain.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 44:57
Yeah, it wasn't quite the bridge you expected.
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 45:00
No, but here I am, and this gives me and enables me to be able to use my voice and my likeness and my efforts with an organization that truly can make that impact where I could have never done it on my own. So I think everything happened exactly the way it should.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 45:16
Yeah, I just thank God you didn't get on that plane. And yeah, you are such an incredible ambassador, the Malala of malaria. Just to sort of wrap up, you know, Insights listeners listening to your story, what are the little gold insights and nuggets of wisdom? The time you've had on your own. I mean, I say that, you know, loneliness is absence of self and solitude is presence of self. And you've got that presence of self. You're just because you've done so much deep work and you were forced to do the deep work. Acknowledging the impact of your ancestry is amazing. As well. Tell me, is there any other, like, key messages that you'd like to get out to the audience listening across Australia?
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 45:58
Well, one of the things that I'm really proud of, and through disability, is, you know, finding purpose post-life change. 50, disabled, you know, losing my legs, and then what did I gain? And through a random email newsletter in 2021 from the NDIS, that I receive as a client of the program, you know, we want to start a para fencing program in New South Wales. And this was 2021. And Australia is very excited about 2032 and hosting the Olympics and the Paralympics. And there are a lot of sports that are in the Paralympics that Australia didn't yet have established to prepare us to be having representation in 2032. Para fencing happened to be that. So for me, when I read that line in the newsletter, I'm like, I was like, fencing sounds kind of cool. You know, the outfits look good. You know, I could just see myself dressed in this.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 50:02
Of course, when you say yes, you say yes, no matter what. And yeah, and I think too, you talked about possibly commentary down the track too in the Paralympics. And you've certainly got that gift. I hope that all of that goes in that way after all the bridges that you've had to cross. Steph, thank you so much for all of what you do, the service you give to so many. You give so much to the Women's Resilience. So you don't think so, but you do. Every time I ask you to do anything, you're there, you're supporting, you're rallying. Helping women stepping out of domestic violence is another one of your causes. And I think the fact that you are supporting because you see the importance of recovery, and if we do not repair, we will repeat. And it's so important to do the deep work. And so it's just such an honor to have you as an ambassador for the Women's Resilience Center as well. You're just an absolute light example of someone that's actually gone through more than most in this lifetime and just how you have pivoted it all around. And it's taken work. And I think there's, you know, that beautiful saying that if thoughts can make you sick, then thoughts can also make you well. Actually physically change the structure of, of what's actually going on within the body. And you have had to do the work. Do you feel that you are on the other side of that bridge or you feel that you're some way within the bridge still?
Stephenie Rodriguez (Guest) · 51:28
My health and because of the impact of surviving a near-death experience. And I said this to Sim in the hospital room the other day. I mean, I've had 53 procedures. I need a full hip replacement. I'm gonna need my knees replaced. And God knows what else, because it's always a surprise to find— because malaria went through my entire vascular system, like, my veins can't do certain things. Like, it's always going to be a surprise. So from a health perspective, today will probably be the best day I'll have moving forward because I'm never gonna recover, grow my feet back, not need medical intervention, not be in pain. But the opposite of that is death. So I'll take whatever's on this side of the good side versus the non-side. And that's the way I see it. So I know my health is always going to be a journey, but again, to doing as much as I can for as long as I can with as much as I have, with the best possible attitude. And that's all I can do. And seeing, like, am I able to work on my impact goal? Am I able to leave a legacy and create lasting change? My motto is live your eulogy. Live every single day as you want to be remembered at your funeral. When someone stands up in the church or the hall and says what you were, if you write all that down and make it your business plan for your life, that's what you will do. And I live every day my eulogy on, I want to be remembered as X, Y, Z, and I just keep doing it. And I will run out of time. I'm in overtime since October, whatever day it was I woke up from the coma. I got a 2% chance and Harvard doctors said said, we didn't think you were gonna make it. So every day I get— I'm like, like in basketball, but I'm 6 years almost down the track. So if I get 10, I'll be super grateful, but I don't know. And that's the unknown. But I'm gonna do as much as I can for as long as I can with all that I have, with the best attitude possible. And when my time is over, I say death is going to have to, one, catch me, and it's gonna have to be a better fencer because we're gonna fight for it, you know. Even if I'm 90, it better be able to catch me and be a better fencer because we're not going down without a fight. And you I will have lived and leave the legacy I want for my son and for my community and the people I serve. And if, if that's what I'm doing, then when my time has come, it's my time, but I'm gonna use my time.
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