Gigi Wright

“It was traumatic at age 14 to find out I was going to have my left leg amputated,” said Gigi Wright, who was struck unexpectedly with a rare form of bone cancer called osteogenic sarcoma in her left knee. “I had just planned out my first year in high school, becoming a cheerleader and doing all these activities, and it suddenly came to an abrupt halt.”

Not letting this life change get her down, Wright adapted. She focused more on club activities instead of athletics and became involved in choir, student council and art.

“I got my leg with a hydraulic knee and resumed my life,” she said. “I didn’t really let it stop me, I just went on at a different level.”

In college, Wright was on the golf team and synchronized swimming. She also spent her sophomore year abroad in Madrid, Spain. She also spent many hours in the art department where she discovered one of her true joys. “I didn’t know any other way, but to be the most normal I could be.”

When faced with paying for her own prosthetist, Wright decided to do some research.

“It is expensive,” she said. “You are not going to invest tens of thousands of dollars in something you aren’t going to use or wear, especially if it is your own money.”

After visiting several prosthetists, she found Matt Bulow and Bulow BioTech Prosthetics on the Internet and began communicating via e-mail and phone. “I knew I needed a new leg because I was falling a lot, and I knew I wanted the most up-to-date leg,” she said.

Matt fitted Wright with the Otto Bock^® C-Leg^®. “It is a computerized leg where the technology in the knee sends signals to the ankle, so every time I take a step, it automatically adjusts, which results in a better gait.”