Variety helps Shruthi make great strides

When Cathy and Bob Reed adopted Shruthi from India a year and a half ago, she was 4 years old, weighed 17 pounds, didn’t speak and her legs bent up at the knees, instead of backward. The orthopedic surgeon said he had never seen such limb deformities.

But nine surgeries later, Shruthi has moved from a wheelchair to a gait trainer and now to forearm crutches. She talks up a storm and attends the early childhood center in her school district.

This is one girl who is not letting Larsen Syndrome get her down. Cathy said her daughter’s attitude is always positive. “She just doesn’t stop. If she wants to do something, she figures out a way to do it.”

The congenital disorder has caused deformities in her feet, ankles, legs and hands, as well as dislocated hips and elbows, and curvature of her spine. She was also recently diagnosed with a heart condition. Her surgeries have helped the deformities, but it’s the equipment provided by Variety that is giving Shruthi the opportunity to be as mobile as medically possible.

When her doctors and therapists said she was ready to step out of her wheelchair and learn to walk using a gait trainer, the insurance company decided that since she was wheelchair bound, they would not pay for the new equipment. Variety immediately stepped in and got Shruthi the gait trainer, which has worked wonders. In only about five months, she has gotten to the point where she hardly has to hold on in order to walk, and she is even able to run with the equipment.

Enter the forearm crutches, also provided by Variety. Shruthi’s ready. She received them last week and will start using them in therapy this week – but she has already been practicing at home.

“Sure, it would have been easier to leave her in a wheelchair, but that’s not the best thing for Shruthi,” Cathy said. “And I don’t think she’d be this far along (mobility-wise) if she didn’t have the equipment from Variety.”

The equipment – and her newfound mobility – has opened up the world for Shruthi. “It allows her to enjoy being a kid,” Cathy said. “It allows her the additional mobility that her body doesn’t provide.”

Unfortunately, this vital equipment is very expensive. “We wouldn’t have been able to afford it,” Cathy said. When the insurance denied a $1,230 gait trainer, Shruthi’s family had nowhere else to turn but to Variety. In addition to the gait trainer and the $200 forearm crutches, they also turned to us to pay the balances after insurance on leg braces, a stander, a special needs car seat and a special needs stroller – all told, about $12,000 worth of equipment.

“I don’t know where we’d be without Variety’s help.”