A young resident of Norwich (England) Victoria Comad was born with tibial hemimelia. With this anomaly, the tibia of the lower leg is either missing or deformed. Victoria had a bone missing in one leg, and shortened in the other.
Experts advised the girl's parents, natives of Poland, to amputate both legs and teach the child to walk on prostheses, but Marzhena Druzhevich and her husband Dariusz Komada did not want to hear about it.
After a long search for a suitable doctor, they found a specialist in a clinic in Florida (USA), after which they were able to raise 180 thousand euros for treatment.
In Florida, the girl still had one leg amputated, but the other was kept and straightened. After 9 months after all the painful procedures, Victoria is learning to walk and in September this year she will go to school on her own feet.
Victoria's feet were handled by Dr. Dror Pali of the Pali Institute in West Palm Beach. According to him, it would have been impossible to achieve the best result for the girl. Now with the help of a prosthesis and a straightened leg, Victoria can walk, run and even play sports.
At the same time, the months-long treatment process was very exhausting and painful for the girl. After amputation of one leg, the girl's other leg was fixed in a special fixator based on the Ilizarov apparatus.
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The steel spokes of this fixator were attached to the bones and these spokes had to be twisted regularly, straightening the bones of the foot in the desired direction and at the same time lengthening the tibia. Even for an adult, this is unbearably painful, let alone a small child.
Marzena says that they were all incredibly happy when their daughter took her first steps. They even cried.
Dr. Pali says they had to amputate their right leg because there was nothing to be done about it, the bone was completely missing and the muscles that attach to it were also missing. Thus, even if you insert an artificial bone into this leg, the leg will still work no better than a prosthesis.
The girl and her parents all these 9 months lived on the territory of the hospital in a guest house. After her left leg was removed from the Ilizarov apparatus, she underwent additional surgery to strengthen the position of the bones.
And just two days later, Victoria began to learn to walk with the help of a straightened leg and a prosthesis.
Victoria's parents hope that in the future everything will be normal for her, like ordinary people.
Marzena and Dariusz emigrated to the UK from Poland 14 years ago and have long wanted to have a child. Marzhena's pregnancy was proceeding normally and no abnormalities were seen on the ultrasound. Only after the birth itself did the nurse tell her mother that her daughter had some kind of leg problems.
Later, Marzena learned that such a defect is very rare and occurs in only one case in a million.