People have gone from “Oh, pity” to “Oooh, cool” when they first meet 16-year-old Patrick Kane, who has got one of Touch Bionics latest hand prosthetics.

By Mette Nielsen

Being a teenager has never been easy. It’s most likely not meant to be. But being a disabled teenager adds another level to the struggles.

Unless, that is, you are anything like the 16-year-old Londoner Patrick Kane: He is unstoppable. He is ambitious. He powers through life with two prosthetic limbs. He neither wants nor needs any pity:

“When people used to meet me, they went “Oh, what happened poor boy?” They pitied me. Since I got the i-Limb, people instead go “Oooh, what is that?” It is a subtle difference, but it means the world to me,” Patrick Kane tells bespoken. He is more than happy to talk to people about his life and his prosthetics.

An uneasy start

Patrick Kane has the latest version of the Touch Bionic prosthetic hand, because he lost all the fingers on his left hand when he was just a baby.

Nine months into life he contracted meningococcal septicaemia - the virulent form of meningitis. After three months in hospital, the doctors had managed to safe his life, but Patrick had lost his right leg below the knee, some of the fingers on his right hand, and all of the fingers on his left hand.

“I learned to walk on a prosthetic leg, but I never even thought about getting a prosthetic for my hand until I was about nine. And when I first got it, I had a hard time using it. I basically had passive left hand until I got the i-Limb Ultra about three year ago,” says Patrick.

The important shoelace

In August 2010 Patrick and his father spent a week at the headquarters of Touch Bionics in Livingston, Scotland, getting the new prosthetic fitted, after only having found out about it earlier the same year. The new hand immediately made a huge difference in Patrick’s life:

“Suddenly I could cut my own food and tie my own shoelaces,” tells Patrick Kane, and adds:

“People often say: “Is that it?” But they don’t know what it is like to have to ask for help all the time. I really value my independence.”

He also says, he doesn’t wear the prosthetic all the time, and some things he still finds easier to do without it – like typing. But he always wears it when he leaves the house. Primarily for the added independence it gives him, but also for aesthetic reasons.

Olympic moment

Patrick firmly believes that there is nothing that he cannot do, all things he has set out to do so far, he has accomplished. 

One of the highlights in Patrick Kane’s so far short life was last year’s Olympic Torch Relay:

He was first approached by Touch Bionics and asked if it was okay with him, if they nominated him to carry the Olympic Flame.

He said yes without hesitation. Then followed several rounds of selection processes, before the young Londoner got the news:

“When they told me I had been selected, I was ecstatic. When they told me, where I had to take it, I almost exploded. It was truly an extraordinary experience,” says Patrick, who got to bring the flame into London’s Trafalgar Square.  

“It was incredible: 10.000 people had come just to see me,” says the 16-year-old.

Aim to inspire

Patrick Kane just finished his GCSEs and has decided to spend his summer in California. Not to relax and explore, but to take a course in human physiology at University of Southern California.

When he finishes school, he wants to get into the medical world, either by studying medicine, chemical engineering or something along that line.

But first he has a mission:

“I want to inspire people to talk about disability. It needs to be normalised. I want people to ask me questions, because you don’t learn anything from starring,” says Patrick Kane. 

Image courtesy of Rosie Kane

We ask you: What is the little thing that makes the big difference in your independence?