Every day, 15-year-old Shelby discovers what she’s capable of.
Some days, that discovery happens as she’s racing across a soccer field. Other days, she’s getting behind the wheel and learning to drive. Every experience teaches Shelby something new about herself, and helps her find new ways to navigate the world as a person with a limb difference. She’s learned that success, no matter the challenge, takes grit, creativity, and a lot of hard work.
Now a confident, self-assured teenager, there’s nothing that Shelby isn’t willing to try. And this is how she finds herself crouched over a large canvas laid out on the floor of her living room. Carefully, Shelby uses her prosthetic arm to dot a cluster of blue flowers on the lower half of the painting. Using swirls of green, brown, blue, and black, Shelby has managed to create a striking landscape scene of prairie grass and mountains, set against the backdrop of a bright blue sky. The painting represents her journey perfectly: Something created through her own hard work and talent, with the support of her Shriners Children’s™ care team, who created her first prosthetic arm in 2017 and have been by her side for years.
“It means a lot that I was able to make this piece to support Shriners,” Shelby says. “They’ve done so much for me.”
Finding the right fit
Shelby and her family have been connected with Shriners Children’s for nearly a decade. During a prenatal ultrasound, Shelby’s parents learned their daughter had a limb difference affecting her lower left arm. After her birth and throughout Shelby’s childhood, her specialized care team provided guidance and connected Shelby’s family with other families who were also navigating life with a limb difference.
When Shelby turned 7, she and her family returned to Shriners Children’s where, after meeting with a doctor and certified prosthetist, they decided to fit Shelby with a cosmetic arm. This device helped fill her shirt sleeve and give her the same physical appearance as other children her age.
As Shelby grew, her needs and interests changed. Her care team worked with her to find different prostheses and options for other devices to help her achieve different goals.
At age 8, Shelby decided she wanted to learn to play the ukulele. So the Pediatric Orthotic and Prosthetic Services (POPS) team worked with her to help make it happen. Later, when Shelby decided she wanted a prosthesis with greater functionality, they returned to the drawing board to find a solution that better matched her goals.
“I already had a cosmetic prosthesis, so I didn’t really want to do that again,” Shelby said. Eventually, she decided on something called a myoelectric arm—a type of artificial limb controlled by the natural electrical signals generated by the person’s own muscles. While it provided more functionality than just a cosmetic arm, the myoelectric arm ended up being too heavy for Shelby to comfortably move herself. So Shelby and the POPS team went back to work, and in 2024 Shelby was fitted with a body-powered prosthesis, which was lighter than the myoelectric arm and easier to control.
Shelby practiced with her new prosthesis every day to build strength and control. Eventually, she learned how to open water bottles, pick up small objects, and eventually write and paint. With the help of her new arm, Shelby created the landscape painting and auctioned it off through Shriners Children’s “Art with Heart” campaign, raising hundreds of dollars as a ‘thank you’ for the team that supported her creativity and goals.
A future full of possibility
Shelby has never been one to shy away from a challenge, and with the support of the Shriners Children’s care team, she has no intention of stopping now. As she grows and her dreams expand, Shelby continues to work with the POPS team to find a way to make her dreams possible. Currently, she and Eric Miller, a prosthetist on the POPS team, are at work developing a device to help her control the steering wheel as she learns to drive.
With the right support behind her, Shelby knows there’s no limit to what she can accomplish. Today she serves as a Patient Ambassador for Shriners Children’s, where she shares her story with students in the community and helps encourage other children with limb differences. In the future, Shelby hopes to become an occupational therapist and provide the same support to others as she’s gotten through her care team.
“I’ve watched her grow in confidence and believe that she can do anything she sets her mind to,” Shelby’s mother, Christy, said. “And now, she wants to help other kids believe that too.”
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