Havana, Cuba (2024)

My name is Shakira María Linares Peña. I’m 26, from Havana, Cuba and was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when I was 22 months old. I couldn’t walk, I could only crawl. In my first year of life, I cried constantly with fever, and I woke up stiff in the mornings. After my first birthday, my ankle, knee and finger joints began to deform and that started my long road taking the steroid prednisone. I couldn’t walk when it was time to begin my schooling, so my mom took me in my wheelchair. After I turned six, thanks to the treatments my doctors provided, I was eventually able to walk to my classes. 

My teen years consisted of treatments, surgeries, plates and screws in my knees and more medication. These interventions helped me become pain-free for a year, and I was able to finish 12th grade. I also started taking English language courses, which I really like. I am fascinated by everything that has to do with letters, just like I adore music. It is part of my world and my refuge in my saddest and hardest moments.

I took a job teaching computer classes at a school for children with special needs. Since there was transportation provided to and from the school, it made it easier on my health. I continued my studies at the University in Psychology, but can no longer do so. It’s difficult for an individual with poor health to go to class or work, because public transportation is unreliable and the commute to the University is a long one. For the past 5 years, I’ve been disheartened about my painful situation. I felt like it was a crime to be unable to work and study because I have the enthusiasm and motivation to be someone in life. I don’t want to sit around doing nothing. I want to explore my talents and my aptitude for music. 

Due to my illness and the steroids, I’ve been taking for so many years, I have osteoporosis and necrosis in my body, especially my hips. I require a bilateral hip replacement but here in Cuba, there is no size small enough for me. Because of my RA and the prednisone injections, I did not grow. I am 4.5 feet tall, and the size of my joints reflects my small stature. My situation seemed impossible. There were no answers, and I had begun to give up hope and my dreams. 

In November of 2022, I was watching the news and learned of Operation Walk. I took the information to Dra. Araceli Chico Capote, my Rheumatologist. She helped me to contact Hospital Fructuoso, where I was seen by Resident, Dr. Osmani, and ultimately placed in the care of Dra Luisa Amelia.  Dra Amelia told me about the partnership between Hospital Fructuoso and Operation Walk and how they traveled to Havana on missions every few years.  She said that they focused on knee and hip replacements and that they may be able to help me. She took X-rays of my hips and placed me on the screening list, giving me more hope than I had felt in years.

Shakira María

In November of 2024, I met this humanitarian team and saw members I’d contacted online, such as nurse Michelle Burdette and social media coordinator, Camilla Ward. I also was able to see friends, Armando and Maria de Jesus, former patients, and Liony, who, like me, was a young adult needing hip replacements. I was amazed that the team had made it to Cuba. There was a hurricane when they arrived, but they promised to come, and they did! I saw them arriving at the hospital and my heart was happy yet nervous at the same time. My turn to be interviewed and examined came and I will never forget what they told me: 

“You are qualified and fit for surgery, but we have a problem. You are very small, and all of our implants are of standard measure. They are much too large to fit.”

They calmed me down and said they’d see what they could do. After waiting long into the afternoon, all patients were escorted into the hospital theater to receive the final word on who’d qualified for surgery.  

It wasn’t me. I hadn’t qualified because of my small size.

You can imagine my disappointment, my heartbreak.

After the announcements were made, Dr. Paul Gilbert, their team leader, approached me. He told me that my hips couldn’t be replaced this mission, but he was going to take x-rays, study the measurements and find my true size. When they returned, he said they’d bring the correct implants. That was an emotional moment for me. The team didn’t leave me helpless but filled me with enthusiasm and hope. That’s how Operation Walk is, helping patients and bringing joy to our hearts. 

I wait for them with the hope that they will bring my implants and give me a better quality of life. I dream of going out again, walking, climbing stairs, riding my bicycle, which I like so much and accompanying my mom to her doctor’s appointments. In short, I look forward to a life without any pain. 

With love and hope in my heart,
Shakira María Linares Peña 
Havana, Cuba

In 2022, following our mission to Havana, Cuba, I received a message from David Diaz. The young man explained that he’d been suffering for over ten years from pain and had lost his ability to walk. He had tried in vain to find help in his community, but due to a lack of resources, his best efforts had come up empty. At 32 and a father of three young children, David feared his life would be defined by his wheelchair. He wrote that our organization gave him hope and could we please find a way to help him. Through two years of coordination between team leaders, staff and coordinators at Hospital Fructuoso, David, and myself, we were finally able to meet in person last November.

Below, in his own words, is the story of his journey to freedom.

-Cami Ward

In 2010, I suffered a crisis of severe lumbar pain, which kept me from being able to stand for over a week. Little did I know that it would start a pattern of pain and loss of freedom.

As time passed, the events became more frequent and lasted longer. I went to see specialists who suggested treatments such as medications, acupuncture, ozone and magnetic treatments, electrical currents to stimulate my muscles, physical therapy, and targeted exercises. They were all in vain. The episodes kept coming and so did the pain.

In 2020, my situation worsened, and I was unable to walk unassisted, having to use canes and taking up to twelve pills a day to muddle through the intensity of the pain. I was experiencing limitations that constricted my physical abilities and didn’t allow me to live a common, ordinary life. Going to work, leaving my home to shop or visit friends, helping my family, and taking care of my own children were all out of reach. The simple acts of bathing, sitting in a chair, and going to bed at night were almost impossible for me.

I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis in 2021, an inflammatory condition affecting the spine and joints, which connect the pelvis to the lower spine. It had advanced to both of my hips, making it necessary for both joints to be replaced. I looked for opportunities for surgery at several hospitals in the country but was told each time that they did not have the resources to help me. I had almost given up hope until March of 2022.

This is when I discovered Operation Walk. I learned that the organization helps people, who like me, need hip and knee replacement in underserved areas. I was desperate to contact them and hoped beyond hope that they were the answer to my prayers.

I began writing to them and to Hospital Fructuoso Rodriguez until 2024, when my dream came true and I received a bilateral hip replacement. I did suffer some postoperative complications from a hairline fracture in my femur, which delayed the start of my rehabilitation.

Today, almost six months after both of my hips were replaced, I feel quite good. I still experience pain in my muscles, but those pains are unrelated to the ones I had before surgery. I think I am more sensitive to regular aches and pains now, because I no longer have to take pills for pain like I did previously.

I continue my daily rehabilitation processes. I still need to regain elasticity and strength in my muscles, which will eliminate the pains I mentioned above. Some days I walk with a cane but other days I walk better inside my home without one.

Thank you, Operation Walk, for helping me to regain my life. With the gift of surgery and I am on the road to recovery. Millions of thanks and blessings to everyone, the volunteers and donors who make these miracles possible.

David Diaz

Bilateral Hip Replacement

Cuba, 2024

David walking today, 6 months after bilateral hip replacement