Sonia Paua flew all the way to Australia from Papua New Guinea to undergo medical treatment that sounds on paper like some kind of medieval torture.
But now that she can walk without crutches for the first time, the 20-year-old says it was all worth it.
At seven years old, Sonia was diagnosed with chronic osteomyelitis, a rare and painful bone infection, in her left leg.
While surgeons in Papua New Guinea were able to remove the diseased bone, her leg was left twisted and shorter than the other as it healed.
She was still forced to use crutches and found walking to school difficult, and often felt lonely, isolated and sad.
"I didn't get to play or go and swim because they didn't want the infection to get worse," she said.
"So I stayed home and didn't do much. It was very upsetting."
That was just the way it was going to be, until last year when the Children First Foundation brought her to Australia for a series of complex orthopaedic treatments at Melbourne's Epworth Hospital to straighten and lengthen her leg.
Children First has been giving children from developing countries the opportunity to receive life-changing and sometimes life-saving surgery since 1999.
'It's just absolutely amazing what the body can do'
The details of the treatments are difficult to read about, let alone undergo.
They involved a team of surgeons cracking two bones in Sonia's leg and using devices that slowly pulled the pieces apart over a period of months as her body tried to fuse them back together.
Professor Minoo Patel, who led the team, said the technique was originally developed by a Soviet doctor, Gavriil Ilizarov, in the 1950s.
"He discovered that if you crack a bone, and then you gradually start stretching it, the bone will grow," he said.
"The body thinks it's a fracture. The body desperately tries to heal, and you trick the body by stretching it out.
"It's just absolutely amazing what the body can do."
Professor Patel's team used a frame around Sonia's lower leg that stabilised the tibia with pins and an external mechanism to stretch the bone.
For the femur, they inserted inside the hollow bone an expandable rod with a tiny gear system activated with a magnet.
Professor Patel said the stretching process was "quite painful".
"There's intensive physio involved," he said.
"Those muscles, while they stretch they tighten after a while and can only stretch so much. It becomes tighter and more painful.
"Especially the external device, it's quite cumbersome. The pins go through your bone and they're sticking out like a fancy form of body piercing. It stretches your skin. Yes, it's quite painful."
In the end, Sonia's leg grew a total of 16 centimetres.
Professor Patel described Sonia as a "determined" patient.
"She wanted the full length. She wanted to be able to walk without crutches. She wasn't going to give up.
"[She had] a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she was going to make the most of it."
Professor Patel said such operations were a big team effort, with everyone including himself, the anaesthetist, the nurses and others all working pro bono.
Even the thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment used was donated by the suppliers.
"It's everybody's effort that counts," he said.
Recovering at The Retreat
While the surgery took place in Melbourne, the recovery took place on a sprawling property in Kilmore called The Retreat.
Manager Deb Pickering said The Retreat was designed to be a home away from home.
"We pick the children up at the airport, and we see them through their whole journey," Ms Pickering said.
"I think what makes this place really special is that while children who come here may have been bullied at home, all children here are accepted.
Ms Pickering said Sonia was one of more than 400 children who had come to Australia over the past 20 years through the Children First Foundation, including 50 from PNG and 33 from elsewhere in the Pacific.
But the pandemic has affected the charity's work, with border closures posing a big challenge.
Ms Pickering said the organisation was doing all it could to continue helping more children.
She said it was working to get three children with life-threatening conditions to Australia.
"We've got the hospitals and once the visas are approved, we then have to go to, I think its to Border Force, and put our case forward," she said.
"So we've got everything crossed that we can get those children in."
'I feel free'
Sonia's treatment has been a great success. Both her legs are now the same length and she can walk pain-free
"I feel optimistic, and I feel free," she said.
"Before, I used to hold crutches and it made me feel like I'm carrying a heavy load, and my life is much more easier now without crutches."
Next week, she will make the journey back to Port Moresby where she will be in hotel quarantine for three weeks before being reunited with her four siblings and parents.
Her dad Bui says the 18 months apart had been difficult, but worthwhile.
"The family is very happy," he said.
"We missed her, but we are happy that she went for a purpose to get a healing."
Inspired by the experience, Sonia plans to finish her high school certificate, and then go to university to study medicine, with hopes she can eventually become a doctor.
"I just want to help people the way I have been given the help."
