Manassas Park girl's new knee grows with her

Molly McKenzie said it turned out to be a blessing when her daughter Destiny fell and broke her leg around Christmas almost two years ago.

McKenzie had shooed her two daughters out of the kitchen so she could mop the floor, but Destiny came running back in before her mother finished the chore.

Destiny, who was 9-years-old at the time, slipped on the wet floor and broke her leg.

She told her mother she was OK, but soon she developed swelling and a worsening limp.

McKenzie took Destiny to the emergency room, where an X-ray revealed a small break in a bone, but also showed a black spot that obscured any view of Destiny’s knee.

Further tests revealed the worst. Destiny had bone cancer.

“Given a couple of more months, it probably would have moved on to another part of her body. Yes. Yes. Yes. I’m happy that she fell,” said McKenzie, who lives in Manassas Park.

Destiny’s oncology team got to work with an intensive three-month course of chemotherapy to fight the cancer that was still in the early stages.

Destiny went through the first course of chemotherapy and a knee replacement, followed by six more months of chemotherapy.

“It took a toll, but she was a trooper. She really was,” McKenzie said of her daughter’s road to recovery.

Today Destiny is cancer free, active as any kid her age, growing as children will do. And she doesn’t have to have more knee replacement surgery any time soon.

Her artificial knee, which was a fairly new innovation when she got it, is a specialized implant that will allow her to continue to grow without repeated, invasive surgeries, said Dr. Felasfa Wodajo, who replaced Destiny’s knee.

Wodajo said the expandable knee replacements have been used for 10 years in Europe and about five years in the United States.

Wodajo, the medical director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Tumor Surgery at Virginia Hospital Center, said the spring-loaded devices are custom-made for each patient.

“There’s kind of a sleeve containing a spring and another piece of metal, and they assemble it with the spring compressed and there’s a locking device that keeps it from stretching out,” Wodajo said.

Doctors use electricity to release the piston and expand the device, Wodajo said.

“When it’s time to lengthen it, what you do is you place an electromagnetic coil outside the leg and cause electrical current to be transmitted inside the prosthesis like a radio transmission,” he said. “When that happens, it heats it ever so slightly in a particular location and that heat allows the locking mechanism to loosen and the spring pushes out.”

He said he applies the current a couple of times during each treatment when he “deeply sedates” his patients before lengthening the device.

Sedation prevents squirming and allows Wodajo to get correct measurements.

Eyeballing the progress helps too, Wodajo said.

“You apply the coil to their leg and you can actually see the foot grow. You can only do this a couple of time because eventually the tissue gets stretched to the point where it won’t let the spring be pushed out any further,” he said.

Wodajo has his patients come back every couple of months or so after any growth spurt.

Most children notice a limp when their devices need adjustment, Wodajo said.

The treatment takes about 10 minutes, he said.

Some children will notice some tightness after the treatment, others don’t complain at all.

“Some of them don’t even notice it,” he said.

Destiny has had her device lengthened three times since she got it and everything is going well.

“Destiny is just a great kid, great attitude. Her recovery was spectacular. She impressed everybody and she has done well ever since,” Wodajo said. “She really hasn’t had any major issues. It’s been a charm.”

Destiny said she’s more likely to listen to her mother these days.

“My mom is the one that actually got me to go to the emergency room,” she said. “I thought I was fine, but I guess mother knows best.”

Destiny will be walking in the 2011 Northern Virginia CureSearch Walk between 9 a.m. and noon Sunday at Fairfax Corner.

The walk is to celebrate and honor children who have been affected by cancer.

McKenzie said her daughter plans to walk in the event every year from now on.

Senior reporter Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.