A unique opportunity to repair Alicja’s leg; consultation with Dr Dror Paley

The month of February 2011 has marked a turning point for Alicja’s right, deformed leg.

Up until now, the best solution for Alicja to learn how to walk seamed to be a through knee amputation of her right leg and a good prosthesis. That was the advice of all the European specialists we consulted; they have all said that there was no satisfactory treatment for our daughter’s total absence of tibia and for her very deformed foot. But amputating our little girl’s leg was always for us a very dreadful vision.

However, just after the New Year, thanks to one of our physiotherapists, we have made contact with an American orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Paley, a true “magician” who helps children with deformed lower limbs to stand on their own feet. First of all, we contacted a family whose 3 year old daughter had treatment in Dr Paley’s clinic with their 3 year’s old daughter. That little girl whose leg malformation was so severe that doctors in Europe had seen her future in a wheel chair, after the surgery and physiotherapy in the US she can now walk, run and jump like any other child of her age.

We wrote to this « magician » and got an answer straight away informing us, that Dr Paley would be due to come to Europe to attend a conference in Sheffield (United Kingdom) in the middle of February. He wanted to meet us in order to determine what treatment he could offer to our little one. We didn’t think twice, we booked flight tickets straight away.

Dr Paley is very professional but also easy going with patients. The consultation lasted over an hour. He has examined Alicja’s leg and explained to us the way he could reconstruct her limb. He also showed us a video of a little girl born with exactly the same leg malformation as Alicja’s. Thanks to treatment in Dr Paley’s clinic this 5 year’s old girl who had no other health problems can now walk and even run.

Dr Paley told us that the treatment would depend on the presence or absence of a patella and of quadriceps muscle in Alicja’s case. As these two parts of the knee are only fully developed by the age of 4 we will have to determine their presence by doing an MRI of the knee. However, as far as Dr Paley could feel while touching Alicja’s knee, he was almost sure of the presence of a patella there. He also confirmed that, even though Alicja’s right leg will never work as well as her left one, it would be much easier for her to learn how to walk with her own leg and to be able to touch the ground with her own foot rather than to learn with a prosthesis.

It’s best to wait for the procedure until our girl is 4 years old, so her knee will be fully developed. The initial treatment will consist of two surgeries that will have to be done two months apart. It will all take place in Dr Paley’s clinic in Florida and will cost 130 thousand USD. When we add to that the cost of physiotherapy in the same clinic, a 3 months’ stay and flights, the total cost will be of approximately 150 thousand USD.

If everything goes as planned, after this long stay in the United States Alicja will have her own leg with knee bending ability of 0 to 90 degrees and her own foot that, however, she won’t be able to move. Her right leg will be shorter than her left one and we may decide to lengthen it when she is older (lengthening is usually done every 3 or 4 years as long as the child continues to grow). As the right leg will be shorter Alicja will have to wear an orthopaedic shoe. However, these future lengthening procedures and treatments are not something we are worrying about at the moment.

We came back extremely hopeful from our consultation in Sheffield. To avoid amputation and to enable our daughter to walk on her own two legs is a wonderful dream. The amount of money for the procedure is huge but we believe we will be able to raise that big amount for our little one.

Alicja had an MRI of her knee only a few days ago (end of March) in Dublin and we are waiting for results. We hope Dr Paley wasn’t wrong and Alicja really has her right patella.

And then the big fundraising will start…

If you want to help Alicja, please donate:

You can also transfer your money to the following bank account number:

Irish Account:

Anna Nowicka Radoslaw Nowicki RE: Alicja's Treatment Account

Bank of Ireland

Account No: 61636846

Sort Code: 90-27-92

International Transfers:

IBAN No: IE45 BOFI 9027 9261 6368 46

BIC No: BOFIIE2D