The Road To Recovery

By Kayley Erlandson

(Sport story)

Stephanie Erlandson has been through more than her fair share of setbacks.  Although the Jamestown College sophomore was a three-sport star athlete in high school with state medals and two school records under her belt, a torn ACL took her out of her junior year.  

After a year of frustrating recovery and physical therapy, Erlandson was looking to get in shape for her senior year, hoping to get accepted on a college team.  Even with her times in the 400 meter dash suffering as a result of her injury, Erlandson was still a sought-after athlete before deciding on Jamestown College.  “I was in the best shape of my life,” said Erlandson, “I had cut two seconds off my best indoor 400 time.  That’s a lot in track,” she added, “Our 4X400 team had broken the school record.  The year was looking good.”

 (pictured: Stephanie Erlandson getting air during a long jump competition.  Used with permission by Blake Anderson-Wilcox.)

Then, during track practice before the national competition, disaster struck.  As Erlandson ran down the mat towards the sandy pit, a piece of the dried foam mat broke off and flew into her eye.  

“The dried foam served as a reservoir for the Pseudomonas bacteria. The piece of foam scratched my cornea really bad and I got what is professionally called a corneal abrasion. The Pseudomonas bacteria is an opportunistic pathogen, so over the course of four days, the bacteria infected my eye and because of the severity of the scratch, this happened very rapidly,” said Erlandson.

“The infection caused her eye to swell to the size and shape of a large gumball,” said Patti Erlandson, her mother, “You couldn’t see the color of her eye anymore.”    

Her parents drove Erlandson to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where doctors tried to hide their shock at the appearance of Erlandson’s eye.  During her daily doctor’s visits, Erlandson was checked by two or three doctors a day.  They checked to see if the infection had broken into the back of her eye, preparing to perform an emergency corneal transplant if the infection spread.  

“The danger of having the infection in the back chamber of my eye was blindness,” said Erlandson, “Otherwise, we were basically waiting for the infection to clear. They'd check my antibiotic drops to make sure they were still fresh and effective. They were basically anticipating an emergency surgery, which, they were extremely surprised that it didn't have to happen.”

After a couple of months, when it was clear that Erlandson would not lose her sight, the doctors confided in the family that even though their area specialized in cases like this, Erlandson’s was the worst case of a corneal abrasion they’d ever seen and they were amazed that she hadn’t lost her sight.

Today, it has been nine months since Erlandson’s first doctor’s visit.  Five months of recovery since her surgery. 

“As a person, I am unbelievably more thankful for everything,” said Erlandson, “It was a miracle that I didn't lose my eye sight. It really helped me get a few other things in my life on track and also helped me realize my passion for medicine, reinforcing the fact that I want a profession in the medical field.”

The entire ordeal has taken its toll on Erlandson, who at the time of the accident, was a few days away from the coveted state competition that she and her teammates had earned.  During her recovery, she is not allowed to run until she is cleared by a doctor.

“What have I learned about myself? I am not patient, at all,” Erlandson laughed, “But seriously, I have learned that I have more strength than I had ever known. After going for months sleeping a maximum of two hours at a time needing to get woken up for eyedrops, all the while not knowing if I was going to have eyesight the rest of my life, I went through the most physically, emotionally, and spiritually taxing time of my life. And I succeeded. God doesn't give us anything we can't handle.”

Erlandson plans to redshirt for Jamestown track this year and once again join the ranks of the team in her junior year.