After a horrible fall, Teddy Ward lost nearly half of his skull.
Most of the joy of being a kid is, well, being able to act like a kid.
For 7-year-old Teddy Ward, a rambunctious little boy who finds it hard to sit still, none of that was true.
A terrible fall two years ago left him with a hole in his skull that spanned nearly 50 percent of his head. Everywhere he went, Teddy had to wear a helmet.
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His mother, Lisa, was forever shouting at her son to slow down, stop that, don’t run, be careful, calm down, she told KCBS-TV.
Teddy couldn’t go to his friends’ birthday parties because they all had bouncy houses, she said. He couldn’t go to sleepovers because “no parent wanted the responsibility of a child without a skull,” she said.
Previous surgical attempts to close the hole in Teddy’s head were unsuccessful.
That was until recently, when physicians at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles used a 3D printer to manufacture a plate made from polyetheretherketone (PEEK), a thermoplastic polymer increasingly used in orthopedics and trauma medicine.
The first-grader’s surgery was a success, and the plate fit snugly against what remained of his skull.
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Teddy is now able to run, jump, roll on the floor and roughhouse like any other kid – all without that pesky helmet.
His mother is ecstatic.
“We are the lucky ones,” she said. “And we know it. And we’re thankful.”
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