Elena Fellman is a 12-year-old girl from Durham. She's a top 20 swimmer for girls her age in the city championship. She's played soccer for years, has competed in horseback riding, and plays violin, goes to the Durham School of the Arts.
She's also a foot amputee. And now, Elena is getting ready to go to a summer camp next week where all the other campers and the counselors are just like her -- they're all amputees, and she's getting to do this thanks to a scholarship.
Her mom, Kate Fellman, said they've never let the amputation create limitations for Elena.
"I didn't know what to expect when my baby was born and she didn't have a useable foot and we had to embark in this world of being a parent of an amputee, and it was frightening at first because I just didn't know what to expect," Fellman said.
"Because Elena has exceeded all expectations, then the only limitations that she has are the limitations that I would put on her, and so I've tried not to put any limitations on her, and she has just flourished as a child," Fellman added.
Elena had her left foot amputated when she was 6 months old.
"I had fibular hemimelia," Elena said. "So my left foot was really small and I only had two toes, and I didn't have the smaller bone in my leg, so I can't walk on that, so they had to amputate my foot.
"It's not much different for me. I mean there's not really something that I can't do, that somebody with a leg can do, so it's honestly not that much different," she said.
It's that kind of attitude that fuels Elena's competitive drive in sports, including swimming, where she has always competed against swimmers with all their limbs.
"I've been doing it since I was three, so I've gotten kind of used to it because this season, I got first place in butterfly, and it's really fun actually," Elena said.
"When I swim strokes like freestyle or backstroke, I don't actually use my legs very much, so my arm, like my pull and strokes, are a little bit stronger than other kids that do use their legs a lot, so I kind of just rely on my arms a lot," she said. "And swimming is more arms than legs, so it just is normal."
While Elena loves to stay active competing in several sports beyond swimming, she said her true passion is in the arts.
"I really love to draw, paint, read, sew," she said. "I want to be an artist when I grow up. I want to do a lot of things when I grow up actually, like an interior designer, or an artist, or stuff like that. I just want to involve art."
Fellman said her daughter's multiple talents have surprised her in the most delightful of ways.
