Dear Family & Friends,
It is time for the 10th Annual Mackenzie Farrell Golf Classic to benefit the The Paley Foundation. As most of you know, this tournament will be held in honor of me, MacKenzie. I was born without a fibula bone and a short tibia bone in myr right leg.
When you were little did you dream of growing to be big and tall so that you could slam-dunk the winning basket for your team? Or run the bases fast as lightning to lead your team to victory? How about being able to kick the winning field goal? Maybe you just wanted to finally reach the top shelf that the cookie jar was on. I want all of those things too! Only first I need to have some more surgeries on my leg. See, I have Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency, PFFD for short. I was born without a fibula bone and a short tibia bone in my right leg. having PFFD means that one of my legs doesn't grow like the other. It stays really short while my other leg keeps growing. Many doctors told my parents that the only answer was to cut my leg off. There are thousands of kids all over the world that are just like me and their doctors told them the same thing.
I'm lucky though. My parents didn't listen. When I was one year old, Mommy and Daddy took me to see Dr. Dror Paley in Baltimore. He's a world famous specialist in limb lengthening who they had seen on the Oprah Winfrey Show. He actually gives operations that make the bones grow. He gave me a special operation on my leg with pins that got turned everyday to stretch the bone. It hurt a lot but when the pins came out, my leg had grown two whole inches. It was great. I could finally run and play with my friends. The only thing is that as I keep growing, my shorter leg doesn't grow as fast. I have had another operation on April 12, 2005 to help it grow again. After about 8 months it will be almost equal to my other leg once more.
My Mom and Dad are so happy they didn't listen to the doctors who could have cut my leg off, and told Dr. Paley that they would help benefit The Paley Foundation any way they could. I told Mommy and Daddy that I wanted to make sure lots of kids could get the same kind of miracle that I got. This year the 10th Annual MacKenzie Farrell Golf Classic will be held at Battleground Country Club.
Sincerely,
MacKenzie
