Most six-year-old boys spend plenty of time running, walking and playing outdoors with other kids but this isn't the case with a Palestinian boy named Hadi Alkhadra. Hadi's condition makes it impossible for him to actively play with other kids much less wear shoes for walking and running around.
Hadi was born with a rare congenital disease arthrogryposis, also known as stuck joints, which caused him to have locked knees and feet that face upside down. Because of his condition which only affects about one in 3,000 children, Hadi can't wear shoes, run, walk and play normally like most boys his age.
Hadi had to be carried or needed to crawl to move around but through the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), a non-profit organization that offers children free medical treatments abroad that they could not otherwise receive in their country, Hadi's dreams of walking has become possible.
With the help of PCRF, Hadi and his mother travelled 7,500 miles from their home in Palestine to the United States to undergo surgery at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital that would fix his defect. Hadi went through complex surgical operations to rearrange the bones on his feet and rebuild his limbs but after six months, the young boy finally has feet that would allow him to walk and wear shoes like other kids.
"I said yes, we can treat this young man," said Hadi's orthopedic surgeon Lawrence Rinsky. "I was surprised that he hadn't been treated where he came from."
With the help of physical therapist Richard Gee, Hadi was already walking for a month without walker. Gee helped the young boy learn how to stand, bear his weight, move his ankles and walk several days after his cast was removed.
"To understand what Hadi's feet looked like before, and what he does now, is almost night and day," Gee said. "He basically had to relearn how to stand and how to balance. Even just the standing process of getting his body over his feet is a new process for him."
Despite the success of the surgeries, Rinsky said that Hadi will still need to wear braces for walking for a few years and continue doing rehabilitation exercises to improve his motion and flexibility.
Hadi and his mother are set to go back to their home at the Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank of Palestine later this month.
