Editor's note: Bradley Tolleson is the grandson of Project Management Branch employee Larry Sharpe. This story first appeared in the West Memphis Evening Times and is reprinted here with their permission.

     Bradley Tolleson, a 13-month-old Marion boy, is learning to use a bionic hand in place of his left one, which did not form in the womb.
     Bradley’s parents, Laura and Jeremy Tolleson of Marion, said their son’s malformation was discovered during an ultrasound.
     The test showed that fingers on one of the boy’s hands didn’t develop due to amniotic band syndrome, a condition that causes the amniotic sac to form around an appendage and cut off the blood supply so it cannot fully develop.
     “Once we did the four-dimensional ultrasound, we knew for sure,” Jeremy Tolleson said, but Laura Tolleson added, “we were always hopeful they were wrong. We hoped for a miracle.”
     They eventually got their miracle.

Bradley Tolleson, grandson of Larry Sharpe, is one of only a few children his age in this country who has this bionic prosthesis. His parents use a large, inflatable exercise ball, games and songs as part of his strengthening therapies for teaching him how to use his prosthetic arm.

     “The first thing that went to my mind when I saw this was ‘bionics,’” Tolleson said, who began investigating prosthetics on the internet.
     He saw a television segment that featured a boy using an arm to perform everyday activities. The company that produced the arm was Pediatric Prosthetics.
     Tolleson contacted the company that evening and received a message the next morning.
     When Jeremy described the condition to Prosthetics representatives, they encouraged him to e-mail photos of the arm.
     “They really wanted him to be walking (before receiving the limb), so the weight wouldn’t throw off his balance,” Laura Tolleson said.
     In March of this year, a year and half after placing their order for Bradley’s arm, the Tollesons traveled to Prosthetics in Houston, Texas, for his fitting.
     The arm is a hard plastic prosthesis with a skin-colored rubber cover. It is just a few inches longer than Bradley’s own arms, and the hand has five individual, moveable fingers the same size as a toddler’s.
     The outfitters showed the couple how to help Bradley perform the physical therapy to help him adjust to the arm.
     “We do ‘Deep and Wide,’ ‘Patty Cake,’ ‘Itsy-Bitsy Spider, anything to get him to raise his hands,” Laura Tolleson said.
     They do “Superman,” too, to get him to hold out his arms, and all the exercises strengthen the muscles he’ll use to operate the arm and hand.
     Bradley’s bionic hand can pinch his thumb together with his index and middle fingers.
     Jeremy Tolleson explained the current pressure in his fingers is only at “cookie crusher,” strength.
     Laura Tolleson said Bradley is constantly opening and closing his hand, triggering electrodes just under his elbow by the muscle movement which would naturally control his grip.
     “The hand works off of the electricity in the muscles traveling from the brain waves,” Jeremy Tolleson said. But because of his age, Bradley doesn’t yet understand how to voluntarily open and close his hand.
      “To work this muscle movement, they encouraged us to carry a small object all the time,” Laura Tolleson said. “So when he opens his hand, we can put something in it to let him know he can grab something.”
     As Bradley learns to master his grip, he’ll receive an arm model that will allow him to control the amount of pressure he uses when holding objects, and he’ll be refitted for a new arm each year.
     Jeremy Tolleson said friends and family are amazed the technology is so advanced. He added that Bradley is among only five or six children in the country his age who have this arm.
     He said he’s very excited about the promise bionics holds.
     “In the future, we really don’t know what can happen. Right now, he can move just three fingers, but in the future he could be using all five.”
     Despite their marvel over the technology, the Tollesons said they consider their son complete and capable.
     “This is more or less a tool to give him a more normal life,” Jeremy Tolleson said.
     Laura Tolleson added, “He’s developed fine up till now, and he can do things without the arm, but we wanted him to have this so he can do more. And later, if he wants, he can go without it.”