CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - A $300,000 machine is helping an 11-year-old girl walk again. For a birthday gift, she wants to be able to cheer and do gymnastics again.
Back in May 2011, McKenzie Truss' Arteriovenous malformation ruptured, better known as an AVM. Her mother said it happened while McKenzie was at gymnastics. It's something like a brain aneurysm.
"Just started getting dizzy," McKenzie's mother Joni Truss said. "And started feeling real wobbly she said, lack of coordination. She had a really bad headache and she started throwing up."
The ordeal made the mom real concerned.
"McKenzie was fine that morning," Truss said. "And the next time I saw her she was fighting for her life."
The girl had to have an eight hour brain surgery. Doctors removed McKenzie's AVM.
"She was in a coma for three and half weeks." the mother said.
When she got out of the coma, she had to start learning things all over again.
"We took one day at a time," Truss said. "And she had to start from breathing up, 'cause she was moving nothing - not speaking at all."
The girl then went to Carolinas Medical Center for treatment. They hooked her up to a machine called LocoMat. It's a hi-tech device that helped McKenzie learned how to walk again.
"I think I came far." McKenzie said.
The hook LocoMat to McKenzie and forces her to walk. It's working.
"Everyday that she comes home from using this machine," the mother said. "She seems to be a little more stable."
LocoMat also helps therapists. Before the machine came on board, three therapists had to get the job done. Now only two are needed.
"I can control McKenzie's speed," Therapist Jen Dicicco said. "I can control the range in motion in her legs. I can control how much assistance she is getting from the LocoMat machine."
So far LocoMat has helped about ten young people. And McKenzie hopes it will help her get back to 100%.
"It would be good to like do what I used to." McKenzie said.
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