This is the incredible story of a little boy who overcame a serious bone cancer diagnosis after surgeons performed a remarkable operation that left his foot facing backwards.

Julie Ford, 26, didn’t think much of it at first when she noticed her toddler son Maxwell had an unusual ‘funny waddle’, she told reporters.

The family’s nanny had noticed in October of the previous year that his right foot looked slightly ‘turned out’, and just three days later, the situation became much more concerning.

Max, now nearly two, suddenly couldn’t put any weight on his foot and had started crawling again.

Julie and her partner Greg, 29, rushed their little boy to the doctor, who initially thought it was a virus and advised the concerned parents to return in a week.

When Max’s symptoms failed to improve, they asked the doctors to carry out an X-ray.

Doctors spotted a shadow around his knee, but still didn’t believe the problem was serious.

They advised Julie and Greg to monitor the area more closely as their little boy grew.

But that very same day, everything changed.

The doctors called Julie when she returned home to Glenorchy and told her that Max needed to be taken to Emergency immediately.

A biopsy revealed that Max had osteosarcoma, a serious form of bone cancer, in his knee.

The family flew to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne to begin 29 weeks of chemotherapy.

Julie had packed four sets of clothes. They wouldn’t return home for nine months.

After the first round of chemotherapy, Max’s orthopaedic surgeon suggested that a procedure called rotationplasty would give him the best chance of maintaining mobility.

This meant removing the affected knee, along with eight centimetres of his thigh bone and part of his shin bone.

The remaining section of his leg would then be reattached — facing backwards.

‘It would leave him with his heel at the front, toes pointing back and an ankle joint where his knee used to be,’ Kelly told That’s Life! Plates and screws would hold the joint together as it healed, and eventually, doctors explained, it would become functional.

The surgeon said Max would be able to use a prosthetic as he grew older, potentially allowing him to move without pain and enjoy ‘even more movement’ thanks to the joint.

Max was the youngest child to undergo the remarkable surgery at the Melbourne hospital when he was wheeled into the operating room in April.

Meanwhile, Julie wondered what her little boy’s leg would look like and worried about whether he would ever be able to walk again.

After eight long hours, the family were finally allowed to see him.

Before they entered Max’s room, a nurse gently warned them that seeing his reattached joint might be ‘distressing’ at first.

But Julie found that she had no difficulty accepting it at all.

‘It was like falling in love with our boy all over again,’ she told the magazine.

Although his leg was much shorter, the loving mother had no problem with the fact that her son’s foot now faced backwards. She was simply grateful that he was still there with them.

Max was sitting up in his wheelchair just six days later and had already begun crawling again.

Fast-forward two months, and he was making remarkable progress.

Julie said her son was fascinated by his new leg and ‘doesn’t seem phased by the change’, she told New Life!

Max had seven more weeks of chemotherapy remaining at that point, but doctors had already declared him cancer-free. He would then be fitted with specially designed prosthetics.

Julie sometimes worried that her son might be teased at school, but she knew his big brother Nate would always be there to support and protect him.

‘All that matters to me is that my boys are happy and healthy,’ she said. ‘And thanks to his remarkable surgery, Max will always be able to put his best foot forward!’

Source: Daily Mail