One step at a time

Artificial limbs offer optimistic futures

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006

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by Katherine Heerbrandt

Staff Writer

Click here to enlarge this photo

David S. Spence⁄Special to The Gazette

Noah Grove, 7, of Frederick, (left) kicks a soccer ball during practice with his team, UK Elite, at Ballenger Creek Park on Monday evening. Noah was fitted for an artificial leg after he developed bone cancer. He is one of many local residents leading successful lives with artificial limbs.

At first glance, Sally Barton does not have much to celebrate. As a result of diabetes, her left leg was amputated below the knee in 2003, and her right toes were removed shortly afterward. She spent most of last year in a wheelchair.

Since March, she has been in living in a nursing home in Frederick, recuperating from a blood sugar imbalance that landed her in a Washington County hospital. Recently, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Yet, when Barton, 55, talks about her future, she is optimistic. She credits her newfound faith to a new prosthesis, and the company who gave it to her – Ability Prosthetics and Orthotics Inc. For the first time in more than a year, she was able to walk without a cane.

‘‘I couldn’t have done any of this without this good leg,” Barton said.

‘‘It feels so good and it gives me more confidence,” she said.

She pulled up her pants leg to reveal a titanium pole attached to her knee with a socket. For the first time since she lost her lower limb, Barton, a former teacher and supervisor, can walk without pain and the fear of falling.

Her first two prostheses were more like torture devices. For a year, she believed that her back pain and the chronic swelling on her knee were due to her condition, not the artificial limb.

What she discovered, however, after many sessions with a physical therapist, and more meetings with the prosthetist is that the first prosthesis was an inch short, creating intense back pain.

Her second was fitted improperly — the socket for the knee was too large. She said she was told to wear more socks to help the fit.

‘‘I think of all the time I wasted. It was very depressing,” she said. ‘‘ I could have been walking, not depending on other people so much, and not just sitting around.”

She is happy with the attention she receives from Ability, and believes the practitioners are as invested in her success as she is. Ability recently opened an office in Frederick, and has offices in Gettysburg, Pa., and Hagerstown.

The company is unique, according to Jeff Quelet, an American Board Certified prosthetist and orthotist, because it uses more than 60 different manufacturers for its clients, rather than creating limbs or braces in-house.

Choice and quality are the benefits, he said.

‘‘Everyone [in the field] thinks we’re crazy, but this way we can use companies that specialize in particular devices,” Quelet said.

He and his partner, Jeffrey Brandt, are committed to client care, he said.

Barton believes Ability’s commitment to client care made a world of difference in her life. Her confidence in the practitioners grew when she discovered that Quelet, himself, has an artificial leg.

Quelet, 34, was diagnosed with a type of bone cancer as a child and has lived with an artificial limb since he was 9. His condition was one reason that Rachel and Chris Grove sought him out when their young son needed a prosthesis.

Noah was diagnosed with bone cancer when he was 5 and had his left leg amputated through the knee in 2004.

The decision to amputate was the hardest thing the young couple had to do, but when faced with losing their son or his leg, they chose the leg.

Today, the red-haired, freckle-faced, perpetually smiling Noah is an active and athletic 7-year-old who loves sports, especially football.

Because he was so young when he lost his limb, he is able to hop on one leg, leap and jump like a rabbit, his dad, Chris, said.

His parents dubbed his prosthesis his ‘‘magic leg.”

Quelet, Noah said, has a ‘‘magic leg,” too.

‘‘I could not imagine seeing anyone other than Jeff [Quelet],” Rachel Grove said. ‘‘It was so important because he survived the same disease Noah has, and has a family, children, a great life – all the things we were worried that Noah might not have.”

Noah’s latest football hero is Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints. He loves to play soccer and swim, and only wishes he could run as fast as the other children.

That is the tough part for Quelet, who works with people of all ages, fitting them with prostheses or orthotic devices.

‘‘Kids want to keep up with their friends. They want to wake up and go to the playground,” he said.