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Daily Mail, Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019Friday, August 23, 2019EVIE
Even my
friends want
one now!
CAMERON
I can play the
drums with
two hands
TILLY
I can match
my hands to
my outfits
s
moment when Ryan got his Hero
Arm last Christmas and fist-
bumped his little brother, Callum.
Ryan loves that he can now use his
game console with both hands —
important for a teenage boy.
A detailed 20-week pregnancy
scan revealed Ryan would be bornwith only his left
hand; my hus-
band was also
born with one
hand missing
but the med-
ics have
never under-
stood why. But it’s
never held Ryan back, and long
before he had his bionic arm he’d
been on a zipwire, had abseiled
down a building and attended foot-
ball camps in Italy and Poland.
He tried a prosthetic hand when
he was younger, but it was of so
little functional use that he just
lobbed it across the room.
The Hero Arm was gifted to him
through a funding scheme organ-
ised by Open Bionics, which we
read about on social media whileon holiday in Portugal last summer.
We couldn’t have raised £10,000, so
we were very fortunate Ryan’s arm
was funded by a philanthropist.
Last September we went to a
local private limb clinic — HCI Vio-
care — to have a cast of his arm
made so that Open Bionics could
then make a bespoke prosthetic.
Ryan was always independent,
but the arm enables him to perform
simple tasks such as picking up his
school bag, and cutting up his own
food because he can now hold a
knife and fork at the same time. In
a few years Ryan will want to start
driving, so the Hero Arm, which
we’ve been told should last into
adulthood, will be perfect.EVIE LAMBERT, 11, lives in
West Yorkshire with her mum
Sally (pictured above right with
Evie), 48, who works in
banking, dad, Duncan, 50, a
property developer and brother
Henry, eight. Evie was born
without a left hand. She says:
My HeRO Arm has helped me in
lots of ways, such as brushing my
hair and being able to open a
packet of crisps by myself. My
friends all want one now!
It’s a light blue, bespoke Disney
Frozen design. When I first wore it
in the street I got a few stares, but
I quite like the attention. Mum’sjust agreed to let me start a private
Instagram page and my handle is
going to be evie Bionic Girl
because I’m so proud of my arm.
MUM SALLY SAYS: Although evie
learned to do most of the things
other children can do, now she’s
got her bionic arm she can also do
her own hair and butter a slice of
bread — little things we take for
granted with two hands.
We found out at my 20-week
pregnancy scan that she’d be born
without one hand. I encountered
some thoughtless reactions,
including from my GP, who said:
‘It’s a shame it’s going to be a girl
because she won’t be able to wear
a wedding ring.’
Duncan and I questioned every-
thing. Would evie ever swim, ride a
bike or comb her own hair? How
would other people treat her?
When evie arrived, she wassimply our gorgeous daughter, and
the consultant empowered me by
saying: ‘She’ll grow up to do
amazing things, this won’t hold
her back.’ We tried a few NHS
prosthetic hands, but there was
nothing suitable for evie.
Then, last year I read about Hero
Arms. But they are hellishly expen-
sive and we were weighing up
whether evie would use one
enough to justify the cost when
we discovered we could apply
to Open Bionics for funding.
To our amazement, we
were accepted and an
anonymous donor gifted
evie her arm in late 2018.
Because she’d got used to
doing everything with one
hand, from dressing to riding a
bike, we sometimes have to remind
evie to put her arm on and learn
to use it for different things.
Although she managed for years
without a prosthetic, I want evie
to be able to iron her clothes as an
adult, cook meals and drive a car,
which the Hero Arm will enable
her to do.
CAMERON MILLAR, 12, lives in
Edinburgh with mum Mags, 40, a
paediatric nurse, and dad Alfie,
50, a coach driver and twin
sister Leigha. Cameron was
born without one hand. He says:
WHeN I got my arm, I celebrated
by eating a burger with two hands,
and couldn’t wait to fist pump my
friends! I can also do up the zip on
my coat.
I wore it to school to show every-
one and all my friends ran over to
give me high fives. I don’t wear it
to school that much because I can
write without it, but when I start
high school in September, we’ll doscience and woodwork classes, so
I’ll need to have two hands.
At home I wear it for playing the
drums and riding my bike. Tying
laces is still tricky, though. I don’t
mind the attention any more.
People normally ask how the arm
works and where I got it from, and
young kids usually think it’s a toy.
MUM MAGS SAYS: Cameron was
the first child in Scotland to have
a Hero Arm, paid for by the
incredibly kind listeners who heard
our plea for crowdfunding on a
local radio station.
We launched our appeal before
Christmas 2017, not expecting
to raise much money. We were so
grateful when we got donations of
£13,000 in just nine days — we’d
never have been able to save that
sort of money on our salaries.
I’d heard about the Hero Arm in
2015 at a conference organised by
Reach, which helps families of
children with upper-limb differences
but didn’t mention it to Cameron as
we couldn’t afford one.
But then he saw the prototype
the following year when he came
with me to the same conference
and really wanted one.
The arm has been life changing. I
now have a confident little boy
who no longer fears going to
parties or out in public. It’s a total
transformation — he once refused
to go to a birthday celebration,
convinced people would stare.
Thankfully, his missing hand
hasn’t held him back. He had
swimming lessons as a youngster
and started judo club at seven.
As Cameron grows, he will have
the internal part of the Hero Arm
recast every two years or so, but
the hand itself will probably be
good for another four years, which,
thankfully, will help to keep the
cost down.Pictures:
LEZLI + ROSE