Otto Bock HealthCare's Helix 3D Hip Joint & computer-controlled C-Leg®
18-year old high school senior Tiffany Moe is very frank about the poor decisions she’s made on the way to becoming an adult and the wayward direction she let her life take.
“I started smoking pot and drinking heavily when I was just 14-years old,” she says. “That led to using other harmful drugs, and I wasn’t doing a good job at all of taking care of myself.”
It was natural for her to assume, then, that the recurring hip pain she began to experience was related to her abuse of drugs. But a set of X-rays led to a different, and devastating, conclusion. Tiffany was suffering from one of the rarest forms of cancer with only five hundred cases diagnosed each year in the U.S. Chemo treatments were begun just as Tiffany was celebrating her sixteenth birthday and the outcome was disappointing.
“Unfortunately, the chemo had the opposite effect my doctors were hoping for and instead of shrinking, the tumor in my hip grew to two times its original size,” Tiffany explains. “I was then told my leg would have to be amputated at a very high level and that I would never walk on my own again.”
Feeling she had no choice but to accept that fate, Tiffany did her best after her amputation to get around using a pair of crutches, but was frustrated with the struggles she continually faced to get from place to place. It was a chance meeting at an AA support group that led Tiffany for the first time to be hopeful there might be other options. A fellow amputee struck up a conversation with her and convinced Tiffany to visit the prosthetist she was working with to at least see what he’d say about the possibility of a prosthetic limb. Tiffany agreed and was excited to hear extremely promising news on her visit to Great Plains Health Company in Fargo, ND.
“I was able to let Tiffany know that a prosthetic that was recently developed specifically for patients whose limb loss surgery affected a hip joint was showing great success,” says Mike Filloon, Certified Prosthetist. “Though her high level amputation presented unique challenges and she would be the first patient I fit with this particular limb, I told her I was willing to give it a try if she was.”
In October 2009, Tiffany was fit with the Helix3D Hip Joint System from Otto Bock HealthCare. The first innovation in hip joints in a quarter of a century, the Helix3D name derives from the totally unique three-dimensional movement available from the product. This feature gives the prosthetic leg more natural movement, and the benefits range from the subtle, such as making it easier to get into a car or reach down to tie a shoe, to the profound, such as being able to walk without crutches for the first time.
Otto Bock’s C-Leg® is also part of Tiffany’s prosthesis. The world's first completely computer-controlled artificial leg, the C-Leg utilizes microprocessors to control the knee's hydraulic function 50 times a second, giving incredible stability and mobility to those with lower limb loss. It allows users to walk down stairs step-over-step for the first time since losing their limb and to walk down ramps or slopes and over rough terrain without the fear of falling down, a common occurrence for lower limb amputees using conventional prosthetic legs. Programmed via a laptop computer to match the unique gait of Tiffany’s sound leg, the C-Leg can also be set for different modes (stances for biking, golfing, inline skating, etc.) which are accessed using a remote control.
Today, Tiffany is able to get around without the use of a cane or crutches and works daily on her goal of being able to continuously walk two miles in order to navigate a visit to the Mall of America without any trouble. But her main focus is on even bigger things including remaining clean and sober, attending a Christian college and joining the ministry.
“It seems strange to say, but my having cancer turned out to be a good thing as far as changing the direction of my life,” says Tiffany. “It made me think about how I would have wanted people to remember me if I had died. I’m glad I have the chance to change their perceptions from ‘user of drugs’ to someone who now realizes just how precious life is and wants to share that with others. And I’m very happy to have what I need to walk that path.”
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
