Two Hands Down

I can’t believe Isabella has already outgrown two prosthesis!  She does a great job with it, and while she still prefers not to wear it when she doesn’t have to (like every other article of clothing!), she uses it proficiently to grab things, play games with it, catch her balance with it, holds things with it, and even eats with it sometimes.  She is going to go so far, and I am so proud of her.  She can do things twice as well as we can, because she has the ability to adapt to different situations with such ease.  She knows how to work with the tools she’s given.  In this case, she can manage to pull of feats with both her “short arm” and her “other hand” (myoelectric prosthesis) that I would have never thought a child could do with both natural hands.  In fact, we like to say that it’s like Bella has eight hands.  I am so glad that we decided to go with the myoelectric prosthesis when she was a baby – the doors it will open for her when she is an adult and technology has advanced are astounding.  And above all, I am so grateful for our prosthetician at Hanger Prosthetics and for our magnanimous funding source, Inner Wheel.  We couldn’t have done any of this without them, and we feel so blessed to have Bella be the recipient of such a wonderful, generous resource.

These photos are from Bella’s fitting day.  Her final prosthesis is now complete; it is very similar to her last one except longer.  She thinks it’s a little heavy for her, but like all the others, she will grow into it and get used to it in time.