Melvin Barney

Case history

For lawyer Melvin Barney, having no hand at all was far better than living with the social stigma of a birth disorder that almost cost him his life.

Barney was born with a congenital malformation of blood vessels in his right arm. As he grew up, the problem worsened. He developed ulcers that wouldn’t heal and that spontaneously bled, and also had a strong offensive odour. He underwent several surgeries and amputations of two fingers and his thumb to try to address the problem, but the symptoms would only move to another area. As his condition worsened, he was forced to keep his hand elevated first above chest level, then above his head. In his view, trying to live with his condition had a greater impact on his life than the loss of his entire hand.

“It’s indescribable,” he said. “I would be approached no less than five times a day by people who would ask me, what did you do to your hand?” People would often think he had broken it. While taking a flight, he was asked if he could bag his arm in plastic because the odour was making other passengers uncomfortable.

The problem was compounded by the fact that Barney was often in the courtroom before a jury and also served as a minister. Having his hand elevated all the time became “such a point of attraction” he had to start screening jurors on the grounds of whether it would prove to be too much of a distraction for them to focus on the proceedings.

“I felt that I would be better off not having a hand when it got to that point,” he said.

The situation came to a head in the spring of 2007.

Barney was in hospital undergoing hyperbaric treatments in a last desperate hope that the high oxygen content of a hyperbaric chamber could help the ulcers to heal. “They were dealing with a powder-keg situation” in terms of being able to stop and prevent bleeding, he said. An attempt to change his dressing sparked a massive bleeding episode in which he lost two liters of blood. At that point, doctors realized an amputation of his arm was unavoidable.

While doctors prepared for the surgery, Barney was on bed rest at home and took this time to research his options. He found out about Touch Bionics and the i-LIMB Hand online, and spoke to his doctor about it.

“We just said it was something we wanted to explore as an option once we do the amputation,” Barney said.

Finding out that such a prosthetic limb existed made it that much easier to accept that his arm would have to be amputated just above the elbow. (Initially it was believed the amputation would have had to include his shoulder and collarbone.) The amputation took place in July 2007.

“Once the amputation occurred, it actually brought me to a better place,” Barney said, though the loss did elicit expressions of pity that, as a confident, independent person, he found hard to take.

However, his focus soon turned to what normality he could bring back into his life thanks to the i-LIMB Hand. He was so taken by the look and function of the i-LIMB that he scorned any other prosthetic that was offered as a backup.

“I can’t believe I said it, but I said, ‘I don’t want that, you can keep that.’ It probably would have been better to be presented with the other one first. I would prefer to go with my stump than don a prosthetic device that looks like something that looks like it’s been pulled off a Barbie Doll. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a hook or claw.”

Now that he has been fitted with the i-LIMB Hand, Barney still attracts lots of attention, but of a far more positive sort than what he endured pre-amputation. “Wow, that guy has a bionic arm,” he reports people saying. The hand has given him the courage to resume a normal social life, including dating, and he hopes to resume flying lessons.

In fact, Barney is so taken by the look and functionality of the i-LIMB Hand, he has entertained what not so long ago would have been unthinkable, wearing the hand without a high-definition cosmesis.

“A year ago, I wouldn’t have considered wearing a prosthetic that looked artificial,” he said.

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