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The surgery and the prosthesis would normally cost over $100,000. But St. Jude operates entirely on donations, and treats and houses all children who meet certain medical requirements and their families, regardless of income, for free.High-tech medical innovations are not foolproof, and sometimes there are complications. That’s what happened to Emily. Since the 20-year-old midfielder for the University of Tennessee at Martin was full grown, Dr. Neel gave her a permanent, nonexpandable implant called the Guardian. The surgery went well. But a month afterward, she started experiencing pain and lack of muscle control. “Every single step hurt like a screwdriver jamming up inside my bone,” she said. During a trip to Hawaii with a girlfriend, an end-of-chemo gift from her mother, Emily was so unsteady that she frequently got caught rolling in the surf and her friend had to grab her healthy leg to drag her back to shore. Emily limped down the aisle at her wedding in April 2006 and hobbled through her honeymoon at Disney World.
In June 2006, Dr. Neel operated again. When he cut into Emily’s leg, he saw that the upper rod was spinning inside her thighbone. It had never grafted to the implant. He replaced and secured the rod. Six weeks later, after just two weeks of physical therapy, Emily put her crutches down and walked away. Her limp and the pain were gone.
In addition to getting regular checkups, Ashley went back to St. Jude every time her healthy leg grew more than a centimeter—about once a year—to have her implant lengthened. First Dr. Neel slipped a large magnetized ring, attached by a cord to a control box, around her leg so it circled the part of the implant that held a plastic-encased metal spring. He pushed a button on the control box, sending a signal to an antenna in the plastic. The plastic heated up and softened, allowing the spring to expand. When an X-ray showed the spring had expanded to the desired length, a maximum of two centimeters at a time, Dr. Neel flicked the device off and the plastic hardened to freeze the spring in place.
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