Chantrey means “shining star at night.” Little Chantrey loves to go to school on her island of Koh Dach, because there is a large playground where she likes to play on the swings and the slide. She also likes the subjects of math and reading in school, plus she says she is learning karate and judo.
What makes her different from any other girl her age? She is a double below-the-knee amputee who walks on her knees.
Chantrey lives with her mom, two sisters and three brothers in a house on stilts on their home island. She is the youngest of the six of the six children. Her father drowned in an accident years ago. To help the family get by, her mother collects recycling to make money, and four of the other children are already working. In addition, neighbors on Koh Dach help their family by finding work for the children. Koh Dach is an island in the middle of the Mekong River, so the family takes a ferry to access the “national road” to get to Phnom Penh.
Chantrey’s mom drives her to school on a motorbike, because at 100 meters away, the school is too far for her to walk to on her knees. Her mother explains that her little girl Chantrey is growing quickly and getting heavier. The entire family lives in a house on stilts, because in the rainy season, the house on this island in the middle of the river would otherwise flood. Right now, family members are still able to carry her up the steps to the house, but her mother emphasizes with a smile that they carry her up a long set of 17 steps to get her into the house. Her mother really emphasized the 17 steps.
Her mother told us about Chantrey’s early childhood. She was born in 2012 after a full-term pregnancy, with her two full legs but with feet that were not fully developed. Shortly after she was born, she underwent four surgeries on each foot. Chantrey’s feet became very infected. Following these multiple surgeries, the infant girl was getting weaker and weaker in the hospital, according to her mother, and was being nourished by tube-feeding. The doctors wanted to do one more surgery on Chantrey’s feet, but her mother refused. She said she was feeling “hopeless” and just wanted to bring her baby daughter home and breastfeed her. She brought Chantrey home, continued with the breastfeeding and cared for her daughter as she healed. Her mother said that she grew up healthy in every other way after she was able to bring her home from the hospital.
Chantrey could stand on her below the knee amputated legs at the age of one. At the age of 1 ½ she started walking on her knees. Her mother says that Chantrey never had any serious illnesses after the many surgeries and that she is an easy child. Even when she gets a little bit sick, she never complains, she is very patient and she never cries.
About a year ago, when Chantrey was 7 years-old, a charitable organization provided her with prosthetic legs. She received training to help her walk with the prosthetic legs, but it hurt her to walk with them and she gave up after a few months. The consult with Dr. Daniel Ocel revealed that her bones are growing out through the bottom of the amputation sites, resulting in a very painful base and connection point for prosthetic legs. She is a growing girl with a growing skeleton! Right now, she cleverly fits the portions of her legs that are below her knees into a set of rubber sandals and walks on her knees. We heard she even runs on her knees!
Another memorable aspect of Chantrey is that she has an extra intra phalangeal crease in her finger, which means that one of her fingers has four segments instead of three. According to palmistry, an extra crease provides a heightened ability to communicate. She sure charmed us!
Dr. Ocel’s summarized the surgery as, “It could not have gone any better. We were very lucky.” The repair of the flaps on the bottom of her legs went perfectly. When Dr. Ocel showed her the mom the pictures of the new revised legs, her mom started to cry. Then, when he told her mother “no more surgeries,” that’s when she really felt the emotional relief.
She and her mother were brought to Mercy Medical Center in the south of Phnom Penh when Dr. Ocel and Ed Correia were there giving their presentations to the staff. Her Scottish case worker was extremely helpful is making the introduction and doing the translations.
We are grateful that Dr. Ocel was able to take this case in a matter of days to manage the travel that this mother and daughter need to do back-and-forth between Mercy Medical Center in southern Phnom Penh, Jeremiah’s Hope in central Phnom Penh and their Koh Dach island home which is 2.5 hours travel each way.