ALEX DEMETRE: She is inspirational, she is full of energy, nothing will stop her ever in life. She is going to be most famous double amputee on this planet.
ALEX DEMETRE: That was when you first went to the hospital just before the operations. You don’t remember. Do you? You do?
DAISY-MAY DEMETRE: I don’t. ALEX DEMETRE: Why? DAISY-MAY DEMETRE: Keep going.
ALEX DEMETRE: And that was just straight after you came out of the surgery. Your bandages, we have to put
on and those were the plastic casts, that tape around the back. DAISY-MAY DEMETRE: That’s mom!
ALEX MAY DEMETRE: Yeah! DAISY-MAY DEMETRE: She looks super different.
ALEX MAY DEMETRE Super different, yeah! ALEX DEMETRE: That was your favourite toy, that one. Everything is rosy.
COMM: 7-year-old, Daisy-May Demetre was born with a condition called Fibular Hemimelia where the fibular bones are either shortened or absent from the leg.
ALEX DEMETRE: It was the second scan, second scan it was picked up. After I scanned, it was
a case of, it was no bottom half found on the scan. She basically said, ‘Daisy’s legs, they are not that very well formed,’ which
obviously means it’s a heartbreaking situation at that point. Mostly the fibular bones are missing in the leg. It was one
tiny fibular bone on the one side and the other side was completely missing. The feet never formed properly. It came out as
like a ball. The other was very flappy, sort of, basically unusable. So after that the best choice is to have the operation of the
double amputation.
ALEX DEMETRE: She could have a life with the legs that she was born with. But it’s not a life to be honest. She will
not be able to do anything. She won’t be able to do what she is able to do today.
COMM: Daisy happily lives with her family, constantly surprising her parents with her motivation.
ALEX DEMETRE: She wants to do what other people can do. That’s what inspired her I think to be able to push her. Because
once she started walking that was it, she was up and away. Obviously, you can see yourself today she is 200 miles an hour.
I would do everything. To be honest we have got such a strong bond. It’s amazing. We are at the park, we go to
Warwick Castle, we climb the tower, we go down the gym, climbing hills, literally anything you can think of. Every weekend
we are out doing something different as well. Now it’s really positive and it’s all about the positive side and how good we
do. She has got two sets of prosthetics. She has got the springs, which are the blades, sports, they are like activity blades
basically, so she can go out and do whatever she wants to do on them. And then she has got the basic ones, which
she wears them more for school and stuff like that. To be honest you can put anything on her now, she adapts that
quick and she will be doing cartwheels on them in about five minutes time and you think, ‘Wow! This is amazing.’
COMM: Daisy has made a difference in her father’s life in many more ways than one.
ALEX DEMETRE: I don’t really tell people. I had a gambling problem. I had a drinking problem. Things didn’t go, weren’t going
well. Few years ago, I got myself down at gym, got myself out of the house and that’s down to her. Because I am
watching what she is doing. She is inspiring me and I am inspiring her. So we are working together and balancing off
each other and now we are at the best place we can be and to be honest and that is together.
ALEX DEMETRE: I ask her all the time to be honest. I say about being different. Her answer is, she doesn’t care.
ALEX DEMETRE: And, you know what? That’s exactly how I brought her up to be. I don’t want her to care. It’s good to be
different. It’s good to stand out. It doesn’t faze her. It’s amazing.
ELLA DEMETRE: We play outside. She is really strong; more different than anyone else is.
ALEX DEMETRE: To be fair, there must be occasions where she has had people say stuff but that’s kids and I have had a
couple of occasions where she’s come back and she asked me, if her legs were dirty and whatever else. So I said, what
did you say to him? She says, ‘Well, I told him mind your own business.’ She does, puts a smile on my face and you think,
‘Oh, I am going to move.’ That’s what’s it all about and that’s what has given us the positivity to carry on.
ALEX DEMETRE: Do you know what? I think she wants to be a model now. It was not something we never thought about
but she wants, you talk to her now, ‘I am model. I am a model. ‘ That’s what she
says a lot to her sister, ‘I am a model. She will not be the model. I am the model.’
COMM: Daisy’s positive attitude has now brought her into the modelling world.
ALEX DEMETRE: She was definitely born to do something,100 % born to do something. I can’t believe in that now and
I believe a lot path with me and her together doing this. I believe that is exactly what we were born to do together.
The two rules I live by with my daughter, never quit anything and never be afraid to show who you are because if you do, you
are not yourself. And if you stick to the rules, you will come to the other side and you will have a better life. And believe me,
I have got a better life now than I ever had before.