Pick a
point!
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Kelly Bruno, you could say, is actually one of the
luckier ones. Her disability (if you could call it that) was
not caused by any major injury. Kelly was born missing two
toes and a bone from her right leg. Her parents chose to
have her leg amputated when she was six months old, because
the doctor felt that Kelly would be able to function better
with a prosthesis than a brace.
Kelly recieved her first fake leg at nine months old, and
by the time she was thirteen months, was able to walk.
Unlike some others, she thought her prosthesis was neat, and
her friends agreed. At looked like a normal leg, extending
from just below the knee down. At ten years old, Kelly's
feelings towards her artificial leg changed. She then lived
in South Africa, and the prosthesis she had didn't fit
properly. At school, she fell and hyperextended her right
knee during a game.
At twelve years, it got even more horrible. Kelly once
again lived in the United States, and the upper right-leg's
bone began to curve. One word: operation. Afterward, she'd
have to wear some metal contraption and no prostethis. After
the operation, her whole entire leg was killing her.
In the seventh grade, Kelly finally got her metal
whatchamacallit off, but had to wait for her leg to heal
before she could wear her artificial leg, so she was on
crutches. The second day of school, it rained, and Kelly's
wet crutches slipped on the floor in the school, and she
fell, hard. The bone cracked all the way through. She was
forced to have a whole 'nother operation.
When everything was finally healed and Kelly was able to
reclaim her prosthethis, she went to physical therapy to
recondition her upper leg muscle. She got back into sports,
and last summer, she began running. She started by winning
first place in two sprints at the 1998 Orthotics and
Prosthetics National Summer Games. Soon she was training at
the ARCO Olympic training center near San Diego and was
competing in England against disabled representatives in
sixty-two countries. She nabbed second place in both of her
races.
Kelly is now aspiring to break records and make the 2000
Summer Paralympic Games in Austraila. New kids in Kelly's
P.E. class start asking questions, but Kelly's friends say,
"Yeah, Kelly can do anything."
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