Lillia, 4, just like film hero
BRAVE Lillia Reading is finally learning to walk and run aged four — after she was given splints like Forrest Gump.
Lillia was born with a rare muscular disease which left both her knees permanently bent like a frog’s.
She developed just two muscles in each leg instead of 15 and got around by wheelchair or shuffling on her bottom.
But Lillia is now up and running — after medics cut the tendons behind her knees and attached splints to straighten her legs.
Mum Katie, 31, said: “They go from under her bum down to her ankle and bend round her knee.
“They are like cages that go around her legs — she looks like Forrest Gump.”
In the 1994 Tom Hanks film, Forrest sheds his splints while fleeing bullies as his friend shouts: “Run Forrest, run.”
Katie, who also has a son Harley, seven, added: “If she wants to get up and run around she can just pop them on, then take them off when she wants to sit.
“She’s a proper little princess — and now she can strut around like one too.”
Doctors diagnosed Lillia’s condition — a form of muscular myopathy they had never encountered — after she was born four weeks early, weighing 4lb 5oz. She had 13 ops but nothing worked — before the splints.
Lillia, from Sheffield, now goes to nursery and can’t wait to start primary school in September.
Her case is helping to develop research of her condition globally and she is in line for a child bravery award.
Proud dad Nick, 32, an engineer, said: “She has shown so much bravery and she’s always got a huge smile on her face.”
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