Calgarian Xander Ricketts is a 10-year-old wonder who lives with a condition that required him to wear a prosthetic from the day he was born.
“I have lots of friends and they like my prosthetic a lot. They don’t think it’s weird,” Ricketts said.
His mother, Ashley Warren, was always ready to help him embrace his difference.
“He was born with a condition called proximal femoral focal deficiency,” explained Warren. “His right femur is 50 per cent shorter.
“We were told he will never live a normal life.”
But he persevered and overcame so much.
“He’s going to ride a bike, but differently. He’s going to run, but differently. He’s going to play sports, but differently,” Warren said.
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have it, but lots of times I wish I did have it,” said Ricketts.
He embraced his prosthetic even more because of an incident that happened, not to him but to a beloved family member, when he was about two-and-a-half years old. His grandfather, Don Armstrong of Calgary, was hurt in a workplace accident.
“I was working the night shift. I stepped down you couldn’t see there was a piece of broken pallet wedged,” said Armstrong of his ordeal. “I stepped on and I rolled off that and my face and head were heading for the dock plate system so I did the $6 million dollar man move and everything snapped in my ankle.”
His leg was so damaged that, despite multiple surgeries, it couldn’t be saved and it needed to be amputated.
“In order for me to have a stable life, that’s what I had to do,” Armstrong said. “It’s a change, but we just keep fighting forward.”
It brought grandfather and grandson even closer together. The pair now both have prosthetics and are mirror images of one another.
“If he didn’t have that I would kind of feel alone in the family. But since he does have it I don’t feel alone,” Ricketts said.
“He can come to me at any time, we bond well together,” Armstrong said.
Warren is very moved by the relationship between them.
“He is grandpa’s boy. They are inseparable,” Warren said. “It was already made in the stars, it was meant to be.”
“When he saw grandpa’s leg for the first time, he understood grandpa is the same as me,” Warren said.
The grandfather and grandson have plans in place to camp together this summer.
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