WanderSafe Co-Founder, CMO, and Global Ambassador Stephenie Rodriguez joined the Sea FM radio show "Bianca, Dan and Ben" for a "Lift the Lid" segment focused on surviving cerebral malaria — the disease that nearly killed her in 2019 and ultimately led to the bilateral amputation of both feet.
Lifting the Lid
The Sea FM interview focused on the psychological dimension of Stephenie's recovery — a dimension that medical reports cannot capture. While the physical facts of her story are staggering (over 400 days in hospital, 47 surgeries, a 97.7 percent fatality rate), the podcast explored the inner work required to emerge from that experience with a functioning sense of purpose.
Stephenie spoke candidly about the mindset required to survive not just the disease itself, but the aftermath — learning to live in a body that had fundamentally changed, processing grief for the mobility she had lost, and finding reasons to keep building when the simplest daily tasks had become monumental challenges.
The 10/90 Rule
Central to the interview was a piece of advice from Stephenie's teenage son, Constantine, that has become her defining philosophy.
"Mom, life is ten percent what you are given and ninety percent what you do with it."
This "10/90 Rule," as Stephenie calls it, frames her approach to recovery, leadership, and advocacy. She did not choose cerebral malaria. She did not choose amputation. But she chose to walk again on bionic legs, to continue leading WanderSafe, and to use her experience as a platform for global health advocacy.
"I get to choose wisely now," Stephenie said during the interview. "I believe outlook is a choice."
From Survival to Advocacy
The Sea FM segment connected Stephenie's biological survival to her renewed commitment to WanderSafe's mission. Having experienced the most extreme form of vulnerability — paralyzed, unable to speak, entirely dependent on medical professionals in a foreign hospital — she developed a visceral understanding of why personal safety tools matter.
Her work as an ambassador for Rotary's Finish the Fight campaign and as a Global Fund Changemaker for malaria eradication grew directly from this experience. Malaria kills approximately 600,000 people annually, yet it receives a fraction of the media attention given to other global health crises.
"Malaria is the world's deadliest parasite to humans, and malaria kills someone every minute," Stephenie has said in subsequent interviews. "Yet it doesn't make headlines like other diseases."
A Voice for Resilience
The "Lift the Lid" format gave Stephenie space to speak about resilience in a way that television segments rarely allow. Radio's intimacy suited the subject matter — the fears she did not share publicly, the days when recovery felt impossible, and the slow process of rebuilding an identity that had been shattered by disease.
For Sea FM's Australian audience, the interview was a reminder that resilience is not a personality trait. It is a practice — one that Stephenie Rodriguez performs every day she stands on her bionic legs and continues the work she started before a mosquito bite tried to end it.
The original Sea FM podcast episode is no longer available online. This article is reconstructed from verified sources.
Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay connected.