Lucia was a full-term baby, had a good delivery with no complications, passed newborn hearing and vision screenings, and was an overall healthy baby up to the age of 5 ½ months.
But then, a lump on her leg was diagnosed as Rhabdomyosarcoma – a rare form of cancer.
She underwent chemotherapy (3 doses for 3 weeks), but after the 2nd dose the tumor continued to grow and the chemo was not working.
The family had to make the difficult decision to amputate her leg so the cancer didn’t grow and spread to other parts of her body.
Lucia was referred to use at 8 months old by her mother, Mrs. Carroll, due to concerns with possible motor delays in the future, especially because of her amputated leg.
Lucia is now 22 months old and doing so great developmentally across the board.
Her FRC (Vanessa Hagerty) just recently conducted an Annual Individual Family Service Plan noting she is exactly where she should be in her speech, cognitive, social, fine motor, and adaptive skills. She is receiving PT form Laura Torseth whom SPARC contracts with through the Mount Vernon School District.
Lucia is fun, smart, funny and she can scoot so fast around the house to keep up with her siblings.
Even better, Lucia now has a prosthetic and is being fitted for a new one that will help her be able to use her walker with support from an adult.
SPARC is so happy to have Lucia as part of the SPARC family. It is a joy to watch her grow and develop even more than she has over the past year. My next success story for her is to announce she can walk using her prosthetic and walker without any adult support. Keep up the great work Carroll family.
Thanks to Vanessa Hagerty for sharing this story!
If you have a success story from your department, please send it to Amanda and we will try to feature it in an upcoming newsletter.
