Carter is more than you see

More than 50 feet above ground, a wire rope extends from one tree to another. High in the trees, seven-year-old Carter Mock fearlessly steps off a platform and places first one foot, then the other, onto the wire. Holding tight to hanging ropes for balance, he navigates across the wire to the next tree. It’s an impressive feat for anyone, but for Carter it’s extra special. Just weeks earlier, he completed treatment for osteosarcoma (a bone cancer), and he now has a prosthetic bottom left leg and foot. Carter says navigating the wire rope is tricky, because he can’t feel the pressure of the rope below his prosthetic leg as distinctly as he can with his other leg. But that doesn’t deter him. On this warm August day, he expertly completes all four levels of an aerial rope course at Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire with remarkable speed and agility. Two weeks after school had started in fall 2015, Carter started to complain of a strange knee pain, and he developed a slight limp. After a whirlwind of subsequent doctor visits — and an X-ray, MRI and then biopsy — his family received his diagnosis: osteosarcoma. Carter would need months of treatment, which would include chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. He had two options for surgery. One was rotationplasty, an unusual procedure that preserves the lower leg, attaches it to the thighbone, then uses the ankle as a knee joint. After surgery, he’d be fitted with a prosthetic lower leg. Once healed, he could resume all...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Our Patients’ Stories Dr. Mark Gephardt osteosarcoma rotationplasty Source Type: news