gilroy
everyone has a story
Santa grants wish
for precocious
little girl
M
With the help of a
prosthetic leg, she can
move around freely and
her life has been mostly
hospital free.
Written By Crystal Han
50
eet Ella Rodriguez, a bright and
outgoing 11-year-old girl. She loves
sports and her typical week is packed
with dance class, golf practice, and drum lessons.
Looking at her, you would never guess that she is a
below the knee amputee. She makes the challenges
of being an amputee look easy.
Ella was born with clubfoot and Fibular
Hemimelia, a condition that causes a shortening
of the fibula. Her parents, Susan and Michael,
were faced with the incredibly difficult decision
of whether they should try to save Ella’s foot or
amputate it. When she was nine months old, after
noninvasive attempts to correct Ella’s foot failed,
they decided amputation was the best course of
action. To this day, Susan and Michael feel that
it was the best choice that they’ve made for their
daughter. Ella would have undergone 15 surgeries
in order to correct her foot and lengthen her leg.
The majority of her childhood would have been
spent in and out of hospitals. Instead, Ella has
been able to enjoy life the way a kid should. With
the help of a prosthetic leg, she can move around
G M H T O D A Y M A G A Z I N E
MARCH / APRIL 2015
freely and her life has been mostly hospital free.
Although Ella never let her disability stop her
from participating in sports, it did keep her from
improving as much as she’d like. At times, she
became frustrated that she couldn’t run as fast or
balance as well as her teammates. “It really limits
me sometimes because I can’t do very much,” she
explains. Ella wished that she could have some-
one that understood exactly what she was going
through. In December 2013, she wrote a letter
to Santa expressing her wish to have an amputee
friend just like her. For Susan, who had been
searching for a friend for Ella for months, it was
heartbreaking to read. She posted Ella’s letter on
Facebook, hoping it might help.
To their delight, Santa fulfilled Ella’s request.
Ella’s letter received a huge out-pouring of
support and caught the attention of O & P
magazine, a magazine that specializes in Orthotics
and Prosthetics. An anonymous donor from O
& P paid for Ella to attend Camp No Limits,
an event where young people with limb loss can
meet and engage in fun activities. For the first
gmhtoday.com