Van Zuidam back in her element
It's just a short walk from Illini Tower to Lincoln Hall, maybe 10 minutes straight down Chalmers Street. But it was the end of a long journey for Erica Van Zuidam – from lying in a hospital bed near death from bacterial meningitis, through amputations of her hands and feet and rehabilitation, to now returning to the University of Illinois as a sophomore.
As she walked to her Spanish class on the first day the UI was back in session, Erica was a little nervous, wondering if everything would go OK. But mostly she was excited.
"Finally, back to normal," she said. "It was finally the last step to everything, being back."
Erica was finishing the end of her freshman year when she began feeling sick during finals week in May 2005. At first she thought she had the flu, but she ended up in the emergency room, her organs shutting down from the meningitis.
She spent seven weeks unconscious at Carle Foundation Hospital. She spent another month at the University of Chicago hospital, where her hands and feet were amputated. Then began months of rehabilitation to learn to walk and care for herself again and to use her new prosthetic arms and legs.
Throughout her recovery, Erica's goal was to be independent again and return to the UI. This is where I belong, she told her older brother, Nathan.
Erica Van Zuidam, who had amputations of her hands and feet after a case of bacterial meningitis as a freshman in May 2005, is back on the University of Illinois campus, attending classes. By John Dixon
The road ahead
Being on her own on campus is the start of a new journey with new challenges.
Erica's main worry was where she would live and whether she could manage her daily activities by herself. She wondered if she would be all right – or if she might be home alone, needing something, with no one around to help.
"Maybe I'm starving and I can't get anything open. Or I need a ponytail right now!" she said.
Mom Janice also worried about Erica being able to take care of herself on her own.
"It was a scary thing," Janice said. "A couple weeks before (she moved), I was starting to just get kind of down, thinking about all the possibilities of things that could go wrong."
But she worried even more about how Erica would react if she had problems at school.
"If it wasn't like she thought it would be – obviously it was going to be different, it was going to be harder for her now – that she wouldn't get discouraged," Janice said. "She thought that once she got back to school, she had come full circle. She was back with her life.
"She's dealt with everything that's happened to her. If the school thing hadn't worked out, that would have been the worst for her."
The biggest concern for Erica's father, Tim, was whether she could get around on campus.
"It's such a large campus," he said. "I wasn't afraid of her being able to handle the classes. She's a smart kid. I wasn't concerned about issues with the way she is, with the disabilities."
But what happens when she has to go four blocks to get to her next class, he wondered. What about when it's raining or snowing?
Helping hands
On Aug. 17, Erica and her parents drove from their home in Lansing to Champaign and moved Erica into Illini Tower.
The private housing complex made changes to Erica's room for her – door levers replaced the knobs and new faucet handles were installed. She and her roommates have a three-bedroom apartment.
For Tim and Janice, it was not as difficult as they'd imagined to leave Erica at the UI, and a big part of that was because of her roommates, twins Emily and Megan Bateman of Barrington.
Erica and her roommates talked online and then met in person shortly before they returned to the UI.
"They're really good to live with," Erica said. "You can see they are real easygoing people. They're real sweet. Being twins, they are in their own little world. It's kind of funny.
"They're famous around here. People are like, 'Oh, the Bateman twins.'"
The three hit it off immediately, planning how to decorate their rooms, and now Erica is called "Bateman" as well.
"There's really good chemistry. We can all be goofy together," Megan said.
"We were all, like, instant friends," Emily said. "Our personalities match really well."
The twins addressed Erica's disabilities right away.
"We told her we weren't going to have any problem helping her," Megan said. "It's a matter of her being comfortable with asking."
"I was impressed with how much she's gone through and how positive she is," Emily said. "She's very independent. The only thing we help her with is (her hair) or carrying heavy things like food trays."
The Batemans say Erica helps them as much as they help her, by balancing out their personalities.
"You would think Emily and I are really similar," Megan said, "but we have our differences, and Erica is a really good fit to balance those differences. Our moods match up really well, usually."
"And when they don't, we make juice," added Emily, referring to a fight the twins had shortly after moving in. Erica intervened and got them to sit down in the kitchen and talk over juice.
"And we bonded," Erica said.
"My job, I've handed it over to the Batemans," Janice said. "They are so sweet, I felt really good about the whole thing."
Added Tim: "I kind of thought it was going to be harder, but because she just has such incredible roommates, it wasn't. I remember the first time, we're leaving and here come the tears.
"This time it wasn't like that. We miss her like crazy, but I guess because I knew everything was going to be OK ... it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. We'll see. It's only been a week or so."
Nathan returned to the UI shortly after Erica to start graduate school. Make sure you help Erica, his parents said.
"Not that she needs it anymore," he said. "She's fine. But if she ever does need help, I'll be there."
The Batemans "are extremely helpful," he added. "I don't know if I'd even be the first on the list for the phone call" for help.
Moving along
Walking on campus has been an adjustment for Erica.
One major obstacle for being on her own was putting on her prosthetic legs by herself. She couldn't manage to put on the liners with the hooks on her prosthetic hands, but she got new legs this summer with new liners that she can put on by herself.
Her new legs fit better and are more comfortable, and Erica walked quickly, with barely a trace of a limp, one morning last week from Illini Tower to the Armory. But then she encountered a slope up to the building's northeast door.
"This is quite the uphill. This is where it gets me," she said. "This is where I slow down."
Longer distances, especially, are difficult for her.
"It's a pain in the butt!" Erica said. "Sometimes my shin will hurt. Sometimes, if I walk long, my knees will hurt. It's exhausting. I would never have been able to do that with the old legs. Now that I have (the new ones), it's like, 'Holy cow! How did I walk like that?' It's insane."
Her father bought an electric scooter for her to use.
"She thinks she's going to look like a grandma," Tim said. "I was driving it, and I was actually having a lot of fun on it. I think she is realizing it's a lot for her to walk."
Erica got new myoelectric hands the day before she moved back to campus. They have artificial hands, rather than hooks, and Erica uses her arm muscles to open and close them. She is still practicing with them and described them as a "work in progress."
"It takes a lot of control," she said. "It takes a lot of focus. You have to think really hard."
They'll never replace the prosthetics with the hooks, though.
"They are definitely right when they say these are the most functional," she said of the hooks.
Just another student
For Erica, it feels good to be on her own again. On campus, "I feel my age," she said. "At home, everyone babies me."
She can easily make her parents or younger sister, Jamie, do things for her, she said – especially her father.
"She ate it up! She took advantage of it," Janice said with a laugh. "'Dad, put my hair in a ponytail! Jamie, come here!' And now the Batemans are at her beck and call. But she does it with a smile on her face, so it's OK."
Janice still worries, though, when she hears about a problem Erica has: The bus she planned to take to class didn't arrive; or she's concerned about the walk between two classes.
"You start kind of having your doubts again," Janice said. "I think she'll be fine. Each thing that comes up, we'll have to work through."
During her freshman year, Erica agonized over doing well in her math classes. She says she's less stressed about classes now because they aren't as intense as math. She's planning on changing her major from math to kinesiology, with the goal of becoming an occupational therapist, working with patients with prosthetics.
Erica is registered for 12 hours of classes this semester. In addition to Spanish, she has sociology, statistics and a kinesiology class that allows her to work with a physical therapist on strengthening her muscles.
The UI's Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services put Erica's textbooks on computer for her and provided a copy card and carbon paper so she can get copies of notes from her classmates.
Erica wondered how people would respond to her, but she said her presence on campus hasn't attracted the attention it does at home, where strangers would sometimes approach her and ask questions.
"I'm kind of surprised," Erica said. "I thought some people would say, 'Hey, I wonder if that's the person ... .' But at the same time, that's OK.
"Everyone is just oblivious to it. It's easier here than at home because everyone is just like, 'Oh, OK, whatever.' No one says anything, and it's nice."
Erica has caught up with friends her first couple of weeks on campus.
"It hasn't been very productive. There's a lot of hanging around," she said.
Nathan said his sister loves all the hubbub and activity on campus.
"She meets so many people," he said. "Every time I see her, she's got eight more friends."
Added Tim: "She loves it down there. She just really loves it down there. She's just so happy to be back there. She's back in her element."
