Georgiana is an energetic three-year old girl who lives with her parents and grandmother. One day, she told her grandmother that she needed another hand. Georgiana's grandmother brought her to Theranova to see what possibilities were available to her.

Many doctors tell parents of young children without limbs to wait until they have stopped growing, before pursuing a prosthesis. We at Theranova know this is not necessary. We know that children who wait until they have stopped growing and have learned to adapt to their limb loss, will not likely learn to use a prosthesis at any age.

Etelka is 58 years old, and comes from a needy family, she has six children of which one is mentally challenged. Her husband has taken an early retirement, due to his illness, caused by a car accident in which he was involved.

The family’s income is based on the husband’s and the mentally challenged child’s state support, which ends up to 4 million/month.

The patient is at her first prosthesis. A plate which has accidentally fallen on the lower limb was fatal to the patient, causing her gangrene.

It was six months after the accident, when the patient decided that she should go to see a doctor.  At this visit, the doctor told her that her leg was full of water, supposing that smoking was what has caused this problem.

Marius is a 23 years old young man who lives in a small town, about 80 km away from Oradea. His parents got divorced when he was just a little child. He lived together with his mother and his smaller brother who just finished high school. After the divorce, his father moved to the countryside together with his own 76 - years - old mother. His dad does not have a stable job, he is unemployed therefore he doesn’t get payed. They manage to survive by growing vegetables, fruits, cereals and a few animals.

Marius just graduated the Faculty of Geography and is now trying to find a job in order to support himself and help out his smaller brother.

On  February 12^th 2002 he had an accident in which he lost his right leg and his mother lost her life. His mother was headed for work in Oradea and because Marius also needed to go to classes, she thought to save some money and took him with her. A bus was parked on the opposite direction of the road and behind it a trailer that wanted to overtake the bus. The trailer’s driver did not pay attention to the traffic and ended up on the other side of the road. The driver of the car where Marius was in panicked and hit the trailer from the front. His mother died instantaneosly. The ambulance came and took Marius to the hospital. He had a femur fracture. His femural artery broke, and because of this, blood clots resulted and his kidneys got blocked. He was not treated on time. The second day the doctors did him a punction to eliminate the liquid. Two days later his leg needed to be amputated as his life was jeopardized. He had five other interventions to clean up the wound and two more that were meant to repair the bones and the muscles of his leg. He had his last operation in February 2003. Marius heard about Theranova fom a physiotherapist and because of his financial problems the technicians from Theranova decided to go and take him fom the hospital. Marius has his first prosthesis now and found it was quite hard to adjust to his new prosthesis.

Lămâiţa Ciurar is a young girl of 23, born on the 6^th of October 1981, the fifth child of eleven children in a gipsy family, from the village Dobreşti, county Bihor.

She was born with a malformation at the left foot, traditionally called ”elefant foot”, reason for which she was never able to use her left foot. On the contrary, her left foot was a burdon for her, making the movements for her simplest needs  a torture. In fact, even by standing up, possible only by leaning on a crutch generated horrible pains and dizziness.

At the age of 7 she was undergone several surgeries in Cluj, but the results were minimal. One of the surgeries did not heal completely but continued to fester and cause her great pains. Therefore, Lămâiţa had to take daily pain killers and antibiotics. Since then, the doctors suggested the amputation of her left foot and this way to get a prosthesis done. But the lack of money made it impossible.

Last year, when God had made our meeting possible, all what this young girl wished for was the amputation of her ill leg, hoping that she was going to be freed by all the continuous pains and the opportunity of having a prosthesis which would help her regain her dignity as a normal human being.

Now, when with the help of God and through your kindness we have managed to make this dream come true. On the behalf of this young girl we wish to thank you very much and wish that God should repay you for all your effort.