some photos

 

Teniss and Amputee women

 

Oprah lauds courage, tenacity of Ayer mother

Monica Jorge sat for a portrait with her daughter Sofia earlire this year. By Globe Staff Monica Jorge, the Ayer mother left limbless by flesh-eating bacteria, was lauded by Oprah Winfrey on her television show this afternoon as the “most extraordinary woman I have ever heard of.” “Oprah” producers saw a Boston Globe Magazine story last winter chronicling Jorge’s rehabilitation after she caught the disease during a Cesarean section. “For every mother out there who struggles to take care of your children,” Winfrey said, “who gets up in the morning and feels overwhelmed, Monica is here today to say keep going, keep doing what you are doing.” The audience gave Jorge a standing ovation as she walked onto the set on two prosthetic legs, her husband holding the stump of her right arm. “We are standing up and cheering because we salute you,” Winfrey said. “… We salute you for the light that you bring.” Jorge said she sometimes has doubts, but has kept looking forward. “I did have moments of, ‘If God just left me one — one arm, one leg,’ it would be a little bit easier. But that’s not the way it went. So you make do with what you have and I could still love my girls.” “That was just the bottom line,” she said. “I was still here.”

 

Brave Jade returns to school

BRAVE schoolgirl Jade Smethurst who had both legs amputated after a horrific accident went back to school today and spoke of her determination to walk again.

The 15-year-old joined classmates for the first day of the new term at Wright Robinson Sports College, Gorton.

Jade, also from Gorton, suffered horrendous injuries when her legs were trapped between a heavy concrete and steel swing bridge and the concrete bank in Droylsden just 10 weeks ago.

She was sitting on the bank and reached into her bag when the bridge slammed shut on her legs.

The schoolgirl spent a month in hospital and now has ambitions to be a nurse because of the ‘fantastic nursing care’ she received.

The excitement of returning to school to start the year in which she will take her GCSEs left Jade unable to sleep last night.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the incident, Jade recalled the full horror.

“I was sat on the bank and I reached into my bag to get a cigarette. I sat down and when I lit it up the bridge just hit me. No one knew at the time what had happened and I started screaming.”

Jade was with friends at the time of the accident, and one stayed with her to help keep her calm while the others raced off to raise the alarm.

After being greeted by smiling schoolmates, she said: “It feels great to be back and I am looking forward to seeing my friends.

“I was in hospital for four weeks and I just wanted to get back to school.

“I’ve been talking to my friends this morning and I am looking forward to going swimming.

Good days and bad days

“There is no point in being sad because it doesn’t get you anywhere but I do have good days and bad days.

“I am looking forward to the future and getting my legs and being able to walk again.”

The state of the art Wright Robinson school building cost £33million and is fully accessible to Jade, who at the moment is confined to a wheelchair.

Head Neville Beischer said: “Jade has a great character and is a very optimistic sort of a girl that deals with things sensibly.

“In conjunction with her parents and Jade the aim was to get her back into school as soon as possible.

“Her words were `this isn’t going to ruin my life’ and that sums her up.

“She is an example and an inspiration. I’m proud of her and the whole school is proud of her.”

Claire McIvor, head of Year 11, said: “It’s fantastic to have her back, she has been preparing herself for Year 11 and she will do the full timetable taking part in all activities, PE included.”

10 weeks after the accident the police still have no idea how the gate came to be unlocked.

Jade Smethurst with her friends Lucinda Norris and Vicki Bradley.

 

Ana’s Story

FIRST STEP: Ana stands on two legs for the first time since doctors amputated her left leg to the pelvis, and her right to the thigh. She also lost her right middle finger. Kolman Prosthetics donated the artificial legs to Ana after hearing her story in the news.

Home wasn’t the only thing Ana was determined to win back. It was the rest of her life ã and walking again, she believed, was a big part of that.

When Alex Freire — a Whittier prosthetist who had offered to construct her $25,000 new legs for free — came by a couple of days later, Ana met him at the door, dressed and ready to go. Today, for the first time, she would practice on both limbs at once.

At Kolman Prosthetics, while Fidel and Daniel stood on tiptoe to watch, Freire adjusted the prosthetics on Ana.

The legs were short to give her better control and balance. They were constructed of light titanium and graphite to help Ana maneuver them more easily. He and aide Juan Llamas-Nunez had fashioned an Ultralite body mold to wrap around Ana’s waist and cup the tiny remnant of her left leg. It allowed Ana to use her torso to swing the limb forward.

After a morning of painstaking cuttings and tightenings, there came the moment Ana had been waiting for. She lurched up on both legs. Fidel and Daniel automatically stationed themselves behind and in front of her in case of a fall. No one chided them, sensing the boys’ support was necessary to Ana.

Hands gripping the bars, Ana bit her lip and slowly, forcefully, pushed her right leg forward. Then she sucked in a breath, heaved her body to the right and dragged the other leg up.

Ana had taken her first step.

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Click here to read the whole Ana story

 

Payout follows hospital error

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A boy who had both legs amputated following a hospital blunder will now receive compensation.

 

Girl’s amputated legs replaced with basketball

What an inspiring young lady!  Qian Hongyan, forced to use half a basketball as her prosthetic body because of a car accident at the age of 3, has inspired millions.  Her dream is to compete in the 2012 London Paralympics.  The story first appeared in the “Metro” on March 11, 2005

 

MY LEGS WERE AMPUTATED AFTER HEADACHE

Alison Betteley and her false legs

WHEN Alison Betteley woke from a night out she thought she had got a hangover. But just a few hours later the devoted mother was fighting for her life and, within days, underwent an operation that would change her life for ever. But now Alison, 39, from Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, is on the brink of realising a burning ambition…

‘ROLLING over in bed, I let out a groan as my head started to pound. Typical. I didn’t drink often so my hangovers always seemed so much worse than other people’s.

Dragging myself up and out of my friend’s house I knew I had to get home to my son, Brandon, now six.

We were living with my parents, Dave and Marge, both 61, and they’d been looking after him for the night.

Despite feeling groggy, I tried to battle through the day, hoping I’d feel better as the hours passed. But the opposite seemed to happen. As I ran errands, I gradually felt worse and worse.

And when I took Brandon to a birthday party my friends were teasing me: “That’ll teach you not to drink so much!” We were all laughing but I soon realised I was feeling much worse that I should have been.

It was back in March 2004 that a group of us had hired a limo to take us into London for a friend’s 40th birthday party at a restaurant.

We sipped champagne all the way and, by the time we arrived, I switched to lemonade as I was already feeling very wobbly.

I’d slept at a friend’s house but by the next afternoon I knew that I should have been back to normal. But then I thought that perhaps the stress made the alcohol have more of an affect.

I’d really been through the wringer in the past few months – just three weeks earlier I’d left my husband of six years. I’d been unhappy for a long time but hadn’t wanted to disrupt Brandon’s life. But, in the end, I knew it was time to go.

It was hugely stressful and I was exhausted with it all, so I wondered if perhaps it had taken its toll on my body. Earlier that day, I’d noticed strange lumps on my neck but thought nothing of them. Then, as I drove us home, my neck became so stiff I could hardly turn it.

I made an appointment with my GP for Monday morning but, as Saturday progressed, I became more ill. Finally, my parents called an ambulance.

At the hospital, I was told I had glandular fever and was discharged. Sprawled on the back seat of Dad’s car I felt terrible and completely bewildered. And, as I got home, I felt the room fade and blackness close in.

The next sight that greeted me was the ceiling of A&E as I was stretchered into hospital. But, within seconds, I became unconscious again. Finally, my eyes flickered open and, though very groggy, I could see the anxious expressions on Mum and Dad’s faces. I knew then that I’d been out for a long time and that things had been critical.

THE consultant came over and explained what had happened to me. I’d been rushed to hospital after collapsing at home and doctors had diagnosed a blood infection, called streptococcus.

I was so ill that they had put me into a drug-induced coma to shut my body down. They hoped that the machines doing the work of my organs would let my body recover enough to fight the infection.

They said streptococcus was normally a harmless bacteria that my body should have filtered out. But I’d been so run down that my immune system had been weakened enough for it to develop into septicaemia.

Poison had been spreading through my body for the 11 days I was comatose and only three days earlier my family had been told to expect the worst.

 

Girl Loses Legs to Meningitis; Mom Blames Doc for Refusing Housecall

After I posted this story, a woman claiming to be Jodie Cross, mother to young Lydia pictured here, commented to explain more about this tragic case. Apparently Jodie brought Lydia to the emergency room–twice–and both times was turned away. This information was not included in the newspaper accounts I read. My apologies to Jodie. You can read her comments below.

This story is truly heartbreaking: Two-year-old Lydia Cross had to have both legs amputated after doctors continually misdiagnosed her condition. By the time Lydia was brought to the hospital and diagnosed with meningitis, blood poisoning had destroyed the soft tissue in her legs, and both had to be amputated below the knee.

But what really gets me up in arms in the fact that Lydia’s mom, Jodie, blames the doctors. Not for misdiagnosing young Lydia, but for refusing to make a housecall.

After a weekend of illness that included repeated vomiting and hallucinations, as well as numerous calls to a doctor who diagnosed Lydia with a virus over the phone, Jodie called another doctor on Monday to request a housecall. The doctor replied, “That’s not our policy.”

So Jodie waited until later that afternoon for an emergency appointment. A nurse apparently took one look at Lydia and sent her straight to the hospital.

Okay, if my daughter was vomiting all weekend and hallucinating, you better believe I’m going to take her straight to the hospital. Especially if my other child had just spent two weeks in the hospital with septicaemia and suspected meningitis. Oh yes, Lydia’s 7-month-old sister Millie had just been released from the hospital.

What is wrong with this woman?

I understand her frustration with the doctors who seemingly refused to take her seriously. But come on lady, if the doctors won’t listen JUST TAKE HER TO THE FRIGGIN’ HOSPITAL!!

Lydia’s family sued the doctor and received a six-figure settlement. The court ruled that if the doctor had seen Lydia and sent her to the hospital just an hour and a half earlier, her legs could have been saved.

Or presumably, if her parents had taken her to the hospital.

 

Iraqi Amputee ,in war!!!!!!!

An Iraqi military doctor looks at one of the amputated legs of Shahad Abbas Aziz as doctors prepare her prosthetic legs in a hospital in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone May 9, 2008. Shahad, 12, lost both her legs and her brother was killed when a roadside bomb exploded as they and other school children made their way to school two months ago in Baquba, a U.S. soldier said.