LAKEWOOD, Colo. — A Lakewood 11-year-old girl was recently gifted a "Moana 2" themed bionic arm cover thanks to a collaboration between Disney and Open Bionics.
"I was like shocked," said Dalilah Ruvalcaba. "I was like, 'This is so cute.' You would think a "Moana" cover would be kind of childish, but I feel like it's not. It's [a] perfect fit."
Dalilah's parents did not know she had a limb difference until she was delivered.
"It's just where the arms stopped growing and continue growing into a full hand, and she was probably that way by the time she was like 9 to 12 weeks," said Desirae Ruvalcaba, Dalilah's mother.
For the first 10 years of her life, Dalilah learned how to navigate life without a prosthetic.
"We didn't really think she needed a prosthetic. I really wanted [her] to just use what she had and get to know herself and what worked for her and what didn’t," said Desirae.
The time came when Dalilah decided it was time for a change. She ended up getting her prosthetic in May thanks to the help of Open Bionics, which started 10 years ago in the United Kingdom and opened its first U.S. clinic in Denver.
"So the reason for Denver, it's central to the U.S. It's a pretty big hub, so it's very easy for people to travel in and out of. And so, a majority of my patients my first year were traveling from all over the country, even all over the world. So it was pretty cool to be a part of that," said Elise Dreiling, Open Bionics' director of clinical operations in the United States.
Open Bionics created the Hero Arm, a 3D-printed bionic arm that acts based off muscle signals. Dalilah's bionic arm connects to her phone via Bluetooth and allows her to track her performance.
"We just released the Bluetooth about a year and a half ago, and it was really just to make the arm more interactive," explained Dreiling. "So we tried to gamify the app when we released it so that it kind of gives people more of an incentive to achieve certain milestones and be able to track how long they're wearing it, go through training, and then just have access to a lot of our videos and how to's."
Dalilah is a very stylish girl and put a lot of thought into the design of the bionic arm.
"I was going to get like a pink, but I was like, 'It wouldn't really go with my outfit.' So I ended up getting just a full matte black," the 11-year-old said.
Thanks to the collaboration between Disney and Open Bionics, Dalilah, along with three other girls in the country, was gifted with a custom-designed "Moana 2" bionic arm cover.
"I love it. It has the Heart of Tafiti right here. Since the Hero Arm lights up right here, it’s like the actual heart and it has the 'Moana' sign right here," said Dalilah.
Desirae said her daughter's story is a testament to the power of medical advancements and the magic of Disney.
"It's crazy to think that kids even 20 years ago didn't have the technology that they have now and the opportunities that kids have now that have limb differences," Desirae said.
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