Hello, my name is Káťa, and this year I celebrated my twentieth birthday in an unusual way – by amputating my right leg in the thigh. This way I am trying to raise money for the Genium X3 prosthesis from Ottobock, which would allow me to go back to my normal life. This is my whole story.

At the age of twelve, I joined the Czech-German scholarship project at the Friedrich Schiller Gymnasium in Pirno, so I went to a German gymnasium for six years. When I was seventeen, I felt a small lump on my right knee. From a general practitioner to an orthopedist, I made it all the way to pediatric oncology in Motola. But no one really knew what diagnosis it actually was. I underwent several operations to remove the lump, but it kept coming back. So the oncologists chose radiotherapy as the next procedure, which I had to attend just before graduation. Fortunately, I was able to return to school in time and successfully complete high school. That solved my knee bump for all.Because of my passion for animals and the sea, I decided to study marine biology in England. Fortunately, I managed to do it before Brexit, I was able to apply for “preliminary settled person status” and thus I was also entitled to a student loan.

Apart from covid-19 making life miserable for absolutely everyone, I was doing well in England, until I touched my right knee in my sophomore year and lo and behold – the lump was back. At that moment, however, I was already nineteen, and I had to go from pediatric oncology to adult oncology. There was a travel frenzy when, instead of buying wetsuits and diving equipment, I used the money from my internship to pay for Prague-London trips so that I could go to lectures in addition to examinations.The finding still could not be diagnosed, and therefore the course of further treatment was unclear. So we decided to turn to another workplace. This got me all the way to Brno, to the head of the children’s oncology department of the university hospital, where the lump was diagnosed. The next sequence of events took a diametrically different direction. From a semi-malignant oncological diagnosis of an uncertain nature to a high-grade soft tissue sarcoma, from radiotherapy to driaks of chemotherapy, from repeated cutting of molds on my knee to a high amputation of the leg above the knee. Given the seriousness of the situation, there was no other way, amputation was the only solution.So, instead of the planned experience by the sea, I went on dates to the hospital for half a year and lost around eight kilos (literally…). Nevertheless, I completed my second year of university normally. My main goal was to go back to school and continue doing what I enjoy. And the beginning of the third grade was at the end of September, the amputation took place in the middle of July. The next step after amputation was learning to walk with a prosthesis. I naively thought that I would put on a prosthesis and leave straight away wearing it, I can walk, can’t I? Well, no. As I soon found out, it takes time… and patience is not my forte. I therefore spent the next fortnight at the walking school for rehabilitation in Malvaziny. In the end, I managed to enter the third year on time.I am very grateful that I was loaned the c-leg bionic knee, because the insurance company only pays for the mechanical prosthesis in the first year as the initial equipment. The C-leg is a much better prosthesis with a microprocessor that can adapt to walking and has many functions. From the insurance company’s side, this is the maximum they can approve. Unfortunately, the c-leg can’t get wet either and it doesn’t allow me to move as much as I would like.Whether it’s working on a boat, wading in a river, or wading through mud, water is an inherent part of my field. Therefore, I would need a special waterproof bionic prosthesis Genium X3 from Ottobock, which would allow me to return to my normal life. Not only is it waterproof, but among other things, it can also walk up stairs, which would be a huge advantage considering that there are eighty stairs leading up to our house.But this prosthesis is not covered by the insurance company. That’s why I decided to connect with non-profit organizations and find sponsors to help me raise funds so that I could fully dedicate myself to marine biology, even without a leg.