Lara

Club Hand Austria Dr. Standard

Lara was born with radial club hand in Austria. Lara’s mother, Katarzyna, shares they looked for orthopedists locally, but they were not happy with the results. One day she read a story about the ICLL’s patient Kacper, who also had radial clubhand and came from Poland to have Dr. Shawn Standard perform ulnarization surgery. Ulnarization corrects the deformity and achieves normal alignment of the wrist with no recurrence of the deformity which often occurs after more commonly performed procedures like radialization and centralization.

Lara’s parents contacted Kacper’s family, who in turn connected them with Dr. Standard and a family from the Czech Republic with a daughter he also treated with ulnarization. Katarzyna shares, “Since then, these 2 families have become for us like one big family. It sounds like a movie, but it is [true]. Thanks to the help of people and an anonymous donor, we managed to raise money for Lara’s operations and treatment within 8 weeks.”

Now Lara’s treatment has come to an end, and her wrist alignment is corrected. Katarzyna adds, “Dr. Standard has done what any other doctor in Europe could not…. We met many wonderful people. We were far from home, but [ICLL Pediatric Liaison] Marilyn Richardson was always able to help us so much that we felt taken care of [and] at home. I hope that this story of my daughter Lara will give you strength… that from such a great drama as it was at the beginning, we have a beautiful ending… where Lara will jump and play with her peers without limits.”