The amazing transformation of Christina Magembe through Children First Foundation

After the agony of having her legs bent and broken daily, Tanzanian teen Christina Magembe can finally stand tall, thanks to Melbourne miracle-makers.

Christina is expected to now live a normal life in her home country of Tanzania, after Melbourne doctors straightened her legs. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Over the past 18 months Christina Magembe has undergone the most extreme – and painful – transformation to give her new legs.

But even those remarkable physical changes pale in comparison to the healing the 16-year-old’s battered soul has received.

Suffering the most severe deformities in her legs and stranded in a country where nobody could help her, Christina was given a chance to finally stand up straight by a Melbourne charity, surgeon and hospital fighting against the limitations of a global pandemic.

Now, after enduring the agony of having her legs bent and broken twice a day for months, the chronically shy Christina is proudly returning home to Tanzania with a new life and confidence to stand on her own two feet.

“Nobody will laugh at me,” Christina told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“They all used to laugh at me at school.

“It was sad.

Christina’s severely bowed legs were caused by hypophosphatemic rickets. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Christina had surgery and treatment at St Vincent’s Private. Picture: Supplied

After amazing treatment, surgery and rehabilitation Christina’s legs have healed and she has headed home to Tanzania. Picture: Alex Coppel.

“Since being here I have become more confident, so I hope that continues. But what I hope for most is that no one laughs anymore at me because of my legs.”

When Melbourne’s renowned Children First Foundation first learned of Christina’s plight she had already suffered in physical and emotional pain for 13 years as her deformities worsened.

Having brought hundreds of children to Australia for life-changing operations – such as Bhutanese conjoined twins Nima and Dawa – the charity teamed up with leading orthopaedic surgeon Leo Donnan and St Vincent’s Private Hospital to get Christina to Melbourne.

Born with rare the genetic condition hypophosphatemic rickets that also afflicted her father, the bones in Christina’s legs were so soft they had bent, bowed and twisted under her weight as she grew.

Had she lived in a more developed country Christina could easily been cured with metabolic treatment as an infant so her body could process vitamin D before any deformities occurred.

Instead, Christina’s case became extreme. Not only were her legs bowed inward from side-to-side as in other cases, they were also bent front-to-back and twisted so that her feet were rotated inward. Even laying in the wrong position caused her pain, let alone trying to walk or play.

Five years ago a surgical team visiting Christina’s home city of Dar es Salaam attempted to straighten Christina’s three deformities by placing clamps on her growth plates to guide her bones, but it had little impact.

“She was far too severe and then it just progressed and progressed and progressed,” A/Prof Donnan said.

“She just kept bending and bowing.

“Between the two different planes, if you look at the X-rays, there is actually a much bigger deformity but you don’t see it.

“She had 40° bowing side to side. And about 40° front to back and about 40° rotation of her legs inward.

“You have that, you can’t just straighten out the bone in one spot. It just doesn’t work.”

When Christina finally landed in Melbourne on February 13, 2020, the world was suddenly changing.

The world was changing when Christina landed in Australia in February, 2020, as the Covid pandemic hit, but it proved a blessing in disguise for her health journey. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Just 19 days earlier Australia had detected its first case of Covid-19 and borders, hospitals and almost everything else was closing.

As A/Prof Donnan began taking scans and trying to plot a way to rebuild her legs, Christina moved to CFF’s Kilmore East retreat to live in isolation. As Melbourne’s waves of coronavirus and lockdowns continued Christina spent two birthdays and more than a year isolating 11,000km from her home and everyone she knew, waiting for the chance to undergo surgery.

But the pandemic delays were a blessing in disguise.

A life of torment while at having such notable disabilities in areas where black magic and the belief that deformities may be connected to evil spirits caused emotional injuries running deeper as any physical injuries.

For the first few months Christina was in Australia her carers and medics could barely get a word out of her. But, as she connected to the other children living at the CFF retreat with their own conditions, Christina’s self confidence blossomed and she underwent remote schooling.

Finally, after Victoria’s second lockdown ended St Vincents were able to book Christina’s surgery in February, 2021.

The plans were almost thrown into disarray again when Melbourne’s third lockdown began on February 13, 2021, however, St Vincent’s general manager Jenny Gozdzik was able to get the team into theatre on February 15 before the long-awaited window closed.

“We were committed to this procedure for Christina and, while it was a little on-again and off-again, at the end to the day it was something that was far too important to postpone,” she said.

“There had been a lot of work and planning out into this.

“We would go above and beyond to make sure these sorts of procedures can go ahead … our staff certainly enjoy caring for these types of patients immensely.”

X-rays revealed the severity of Christina’s deformity. Picture: Alex Coppel.

In the operating theatre A/Prof Donnan inserted struts into two sites in each of Christina’s legs, which connected to highly advanced ring frames on the outside known as a Hexapod Deformity Correction System.

Using software the rings were programmed with a plan to make tiny adjustments to the struts twice a day to push, pull, bend and twist Christina’s bones at different places over the course of the next six weeks.

By making a minute bend or break, then giving the bone time to rebuild and reset before it is adjusted again, Christina’s leg could be progressively straightened by up to 1mm a in each of the three directions needed each day.

But with 12 screws into each leg having to be adjusted twice every day, the process was agonising for the determined Christina.

“They put frames on my legs to make them straight,” Christina said.

“When the turned the frames it was hard – it caused great pain.

“It was so hard.”

“I said ‘it is pain, it is pain’ but they had to do it.”

After six weeks the impact of the tiny adjustments was so pronounced Christina had grown from 130cm to 137cm.

“It not a lot of fun. I can’t put it any other way,” A/Prof Donnan said.

“When you take a banana and you straighten it out it is longer.

“That is just a consequence of it, but it’s a positive consequence for her because she was relatively short.”

Once straight, the frames were removed from Christina’s legs so she could spend weeks in casts as her broken and battered bones regrew stronger in their new position, before receiving the all clear to finally return home at the end of September.

It was “pain, pain, pain, but they had to do it,” Christina says of her agonising treatment. Picture: Alex Coppel.

“I would expect her to have a normal life. She may be a bit on the short side, but she looks good,” A/Prof Donnan said.

“I musculoskeletal health point of you she will be good.

“And from the mental health and socialisation and confident side of it she will be even better.”

As she left for Tanzania with a beaming smile and pride in her new legs, Christina’s new-found confidence had her planning to do much more than just walk away from those who had scared her in the past.

“They feel good. They are straight,” Christina said.

“I came here for surgery. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t run.

“Now I want to go swimming and I want to do ballet.

“My grandmother says ‘don’t put too much effort into doing things’. I listen to her … sometimes.”