Profile: Over the Rainbow

Communications major Andrew Penarubia overcomes adversity with a smile.

The distance from the Owl Cafe to the Performing Arts Building is less than one mile. Within that brief walk Andrew Penarubia, 22, stops to greet 36 other students whom he has met during his time at Citrus.

Penarubia was born with an Arteriovenous Malformation, an abnormal tangling of blood vessels in the brain.

AVMs are a hereditary genetic condition. Other members of the Penarubia family including his grand-uncle and great-aunt have also had AVMs and did not survive.

At age 7 his AVM ruptured, causing a stroke. He was rushed to the hospital after collapsing during a family gathering at his cousin’s house.

The American Stroke Association reports that “brain AVMs occur in less than one percent of the general population. It is estimated that about one in 2,000–5,000 people may have an AVM.” While the risk of death from a hemorrhage is fairly low, patients are more likely to sustain permanent brain damage from a ruptured AVM.

Because of the rarity of his AVM rupturing, his family knew that the chances of survival were slim.

Penarubia explained that the doctors “basically gave up on me. My blood pressure was over 200…I was vomiting, and I couldn’t see through my left eye.”

The situation was looking grim, but his family was not ready to give up. The only potential solution was for him to receive a craniotomy to relieve the immense pressure from the buildup of blood in his head.

“If in 72 hours the blood returned, I wouldn’t be here now,” Penarubia says with a reflective grin on his face.

His mother Annabelle Penarubia, 57, was by his side the whole time.

“We spent a week at the Huntington Medical Center in Pasadena. Then we transferred to Kaiser and he was there to recover and then we spent six weeks in the Rehab Center of Children’s Hospital in [Los Angeles],” says Annabelle Penarubia.

His family created a network of prayer between friends, relatives and those who knew his story. Having family from the Philippines, Europe and the Americas, Penarubia jokes that his story “went global.”

After two months in the hospital, Penarubia was able to go home.

Today he is partially paralyzed in the left side of his body.

He currently undergoes physical and occupational therapy, and regularly receives botox injections to relax the muscles in his arm and fingers.

Penarubia jokes that “I came out alright because I couldn’t be all left.”

Throughout the years he has become a proficient musician who can play piano, harmonica, ukulele, guitar and trumpet using only his right arm and hand.

Inspired and taught by his father, Penarubia developed his own unique techniques for maneuvering these two-handed instruments with his right side only.

When playing the ukulele, Penarubia lays the instrument down across his lap and strums with his thumb while his fingers hold the chords. This is quite the feat for any musician, but he manages to make this practice seem effortless.  

Musicians like Stevie Wonder and Bruno Mars inspire Penarubia to be who he is today. Their passion and charisma despite adversity in life resonates with him and give him a more positive outlook on his circumstance.

Johnny Muñoz, 22, is a close friend of Penarubia’s. The two met in the Campus Center and Muñoz was immediately impressed by the sound of Penarubia playing ukulele but was initially unaware that the ukulele was being played with only one hand.

As a blind student, Muñoz can relate to the experience of living with disabilities.  

“He inspires me. His disability doesn’t stop him from doing what he wants to do,” says Muñoz.

Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s “Over the Rainbow” is one of Penarubia’s favorite songs to perform, featuring a single vocalist and ukulele. The nature of the song is triumphant and hopeful, much like himself.

In a practice room of the Performing Arts building, Penarubia broke into song by playing Phil Collins’ “You’ll Be In My Heart.”

His voice echoed through the music room with all the color of his vibrant personality. Through nervous energy, he sang, “Come stop your crying, it’ll be alright, Just take my hand and hold it tight.”

One of Penarubia’s goals is to use his communications degree to become a motivational speaker.

“Andrew is a very resilient kid and lives his life with gratitude knowing that God has given him a second chance at life,” says his mother Annabelle Penarubia.

He thoroughly enjoys making people smile, and this is apparent as he walks around campus greeting nearly everyone within his vicinity.

Penarubia jokes that it often takes him hours to walk across campus because he has to greet everyone he sees.

He has invested in his own philosophy that “the people that surround you affect how you think” and he aims to surround everyone he can with his cheerful energy, hoping that it will affect them for the better.

Not everyone he encounters has the same enthusiasm that he has shown to them. Often times his warm greetings are met with a cold shoulder.

“I want everyone to have a nice day, even if they block me out,” Penarubia said.

He maintains his theory that positivity put into the community and those around you will always be returned, even if it is not directly.