Xixi is 9 years old and was born limb different. She is adopted and was born with ABS, like so many other children all over the world.  Xixi was born in Wuhan China and was adopted by the Padgett’s in 2005 where she now lives with them and her 3 older siblings, in the USA.

Xixi’s Mom, Melissa says that Xixi has not let her limb difference hinder her in any way at all. Brother Adam (age 10) and Xixi learned to tie their shoe laces together on the same day and Adam helped her to learn to ride her bike this Spring. Xixi had some balance issues in the beginning as she could not hold the handle bar, but once she got the balance right, she was off and away and spent the entire spring break on her bike.

Xixi’s Hand today

Xixi is not only academic and loves school; mostly getting straight A’s, but she draws, writes, cooks, takes Tae Kwon Do lessons, where she just earned her green belt with two stripes, and now she is starting to practice with a bow and arrow.

Home Cooked Blackberry Pie

Her Mom says that she loves to shop for clothes, shoes and purses. She likes thrift stores and clothes shops best.

She has lots of friends at school and loves to have her girlfriends over as her older siblings are all boys, so she feels a bit left out being the only girl at home.

One of her best friends is another girl from China who also has ABS. They were adopted the same year.

A Family Outing

Xixi loves animals, especially kittens. At home they have 5 cats. Xixi was afraid of dogs when she was very little, but she’s not afraid of any animals now (except bees). She plays with the two dogs at home as well as the hedgehog and the snake.

We at Robohand feel very lucky to bring Xixi into our family. However, this is going to be a difficult process as she lives so far away. Xixi’s Mom will need to provide us with moulds of her hand so that Richard can work out the sizing of the Robohand and the fitting of the hand cap and gauntlet.

This is also not going to be a fast process and will take many weeks up and down, until Xixi has her functioning mechanical hand.

We are very excited at the prospect of this long distance collaboration and helping to enable Xixi in her everyday life.

Thank you to the Padgetts for contacting us and to everyone who has contributed to our project, enabling us to make these things happen.