Brave Toddler Keeps Smiling Despite Losing Limbs

Spooning yoghurt into, and around, her mouth, three-year-old Harmonie-Rose Allen smiles and giggles at her accomplishment.

Born a healthy baby girl, at the age of one Harmonie tragically contracted meningitis, resulting in all four of her limbs being amputated.

But thanks to leg prosthetics, her pincer-like arm attachment and the love and support of her family, Harmonie is living a full and happy life – and not letting anything hold her back.

Adapting so she can do many things herself, Harmonie bounces across the floor to get around, uses her shoulders and arm tops to hold cups, lollies and even a chap stick, and cradles pens between her chin and shoulder to draw smiley faces of mummy and daddy.

Mum Freya Hall, 22, from Bath said: “She is like a normal toddler. She likes to sing, she likes to paint pictures, she loves to play with her toys. She loves everything really. She is just really happy and gets on with it.

“I like that she never gives up and always tries. Harmonie is always doing things and doesn’t keep still.”

“I look at it as if it is normal. But other people look at it as if it’s amazing and they are shocked at what she can do – they admire that she can basically do anything.”

A regular at the Bristol Children’s hospital, since her amputations Harmonie has undergone 10 operations, including painful bone shaving procedures.

Doctors warn she could suffer long-term vision and learning difficulties in the future and the three-year-old has to take medication to manage the pain; she also suffers chronic kidney failure. The toddler has already had four rounds of leg prosthetic fittings and most recently had the prosthetic arm with a hook fitted, to help her grab and hold things more easily.

Freya said: “We make sure she wears her prosthetics for an hour a day because we want her to get used to them.”

“She doesn’t really like them at the moment. She sees them as more of a hindrance rather than a help because she’s so young and can get around so quick.

“She bum shuffles everywhere. She is like a little rocket now.”

Dad Ross, 24, who works in a DIY store in between the frequent hospital visits, said: “My favourite memory of Harmonie is when she got her first pair of legs. I helped her to walk. I held her arms and she walked towards me.”

Ross’s memory is all the more poignant as he and partner Freya had seen baby Harmonie take her first steps just days before she contracted meningitis.

Struck down with an aggressive strain of Meningitis in September 2014, Harmonie was rushed into Intensive Care.

On a life support machine, Harmonie contracted septicaemia; doctors said her rash was one of the worst they’d ever seen and gave her a 10% chance of survival.

Harmonie stayed in intensive care for over a month, during which she was on a dialysis machine after her kidneys failed, and eventually doctors told Freya and Ross they would have to amputate their daughter’s arms, legs and the tip of her nose.

Freya said: “You sign that form to say it is okay for her to have her arms and legs amputated and you almost feel like you are in the wrong, but you know it’s the best thing for her because without it she would have died.”

“After the operations you don’t really know what you feel – sad but then a lot happier when this is all gone. She was like a dead weight, there’s nothing she could do with her arms and legs so in a way you feel happy because it’s a new start, but then you're obviously gutted as well.”

The family spent another three months by the daughter’s hospital bedside as she recovered from the surgery.

Freya said: “She was too young to know what happened but we told her. When she was in intensive care we would talk to her and it would give us comfort.”

“When we first came back home it was just before Christmas and everybody wanted to see us. It was like coming home with a new born again, because we had to learn how to look after the new Harmonie.”

Now thriving, Harmonie goes to nursery and is making friends fast. Although Freya admits her daughter is also starting to notice that she looks different to the other children she plays with.

She said: “Since she started nursery, Harmonie has noticed that the other children wash their hands. So she washes her arms as well.

“One day she said to me, ‘Mummy where are my hands?’ I said, ‘You don’t need hands, you can do everything without them.'”

“Now Harmonie introduces herself like, ‘Hi, I am Harmonie no hands.’"

Mum Freya came up with a novel way of getting Harmonie to accept and understand her condition.

“We decided to buy Harmonie a doll with prosthetics because I didn’t want her to be the only one. When we gave Rebecca to Harmonie, she was just amazed that it had legs and arms that you could take off. She said, ‘She is like me mummy.’”

Harmonie has taken Rebecca to nursery with her to show the children her special doll. Going to nursery has also encouraged Harmonie to practice walking in her prosthetics more.

Freya said: "She is starting to get a lot better, she is starting to understand that she will be able to run like everybody else.”

In the future mum and dad hope their daughter will show the same determination and positivity that she’s already demonstrated, in abundance, as a little girl.

Freya said: “We just want her to live a life like everybody else, and do everything, everyone else can do.”