LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — On any given day at the Lykins home, you’ll find brothers Eli and Parker shooting hoops, tossing the football, or playing baseball.
“Can you go easy so I can beat you?” Eli jokes to his big brother.
The smorgasbord of sports keeps the boys busy and their parents on their toes.
By all accounts, Eli is your average boy, but when you get to know the 10-year-old, you’ll find that Eli is anything but average.
As his parents Tom and Amber explain, Eli was born without his left arm from below the elbow down.
“I found at my 20 week scan that Eli was going to be missing his left forearm due to ABS, which is amniotic band syndrome, when bands in utero are wrapped around his arm and constricts blood flow and basically pinch it off,” said Amber.
The parents admit, they were shocked and concerned at first, wondering what their son’s future would look like.
Despite his limb difference, Eli arrived in the world as a healthy little boy, but as he grew, the double takes and questions from strangers inevitably came.
Tom recalled one instance when he took the boys to meet Santa and other children tugged on Eli’s arm, even screamed as they noticed his limb difference.
“That puts you into a position where it's just new and you feel for him, but honestly he doesn't let that get to him…it would’ve got to me,” said Tom. “But he just throws it off and keeps going, he's always been like that.”
“Because a limb difference does not define Eli,” Amber echoed.
That said, when Eli began asking about the potential of a prosthetic hand last year, it wasn’t in an effort to erase his limb difference, but to enhance it.
Working with Kenney Orthopedics, Eli looked through prototypes and chose the prosthetic he preferred while doctors made a mold of his arm.
Just last week, the bionic hand arrived in the United States.
Amber recounted the moment, “They said ‘We’re having someone drive it down right now, can you meet us?" And we said, "Absolutely, we’ll be there.’”
Unbeknownst to them at the time, Eli became the first kid in the United States to receive the specialty hand, an added bonus to the excitement of receiving his first prosthetic.
As for how it works, the myo-electric bionic hand uses Eli’s muscles to control sensors, which then trigger functions like gripping and holding.
“It's kinda heavy when I put it on, but I’m getting used to it," Eli said.
He’s yet to decide if he’ll use the hand while he plays sports. For now, Eli’s exploring the hand’s functions and using it for day to day tasks. After all, he had to adapt to holding a baseball bat and shooting a basketball without both hands long ago.
With or without his prosthetic, he’s just as capable as his peers, and perhaps that’s the moral of Eli’s story. A limb difference doesn’t define him, and he hopes others like him feel the same.
To them he’d say, “Don’t let others bring you down.”
Across the United States, more than 5.6 million people live with limb loss. April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month, a time to educate, advocate, and celebrate those living with limb difference.
