“For almost a year now, I have been gathering requests and creating completely unique toys for each child, aiming to help them understand and cope with their medical issues by normalising them. Whenever I design a new toy (which frequently takes a full day’s labour), I only ask for £20. This has been an incredible journey, and I now have 55 entirely bespoke medical toys that can benefit even the sickest children.”
Below is some examples…
Hydrocephalus is a condition where fluid builds up in the brain. Without the shunt valve brain implant, this is fatal. These children have multiple disabilities which they cant explain, a brain implant which needs periodically replacing (I spoke with one guy who has had 47 brain surgeries so far). A lady in Scotland came to me and asked me to make a toy for her 3 year old who had a shunt valve, and the teddy shunt valve was born.
“When I shared this story, I was inundated with messages, so I decided I needed to do this one properly. I learned about toy safety, paid a lab to safety-test it, and refined the design until it was fully compliant with EU toy safety law. I now have 5 plastics that are fully compliant with EN71-3, and I have sent these to children and children’s hospitals across the world. Over 300 teddy shunt valves have been made so far, and I’m making more as I type!”
The LimbBo Foundation do something really special. They 3D print arms for limb-challenged children. So I thought it was time someone did something really special for them. I found an amazing guy, Camille, who’s a really talented 3d modeller. I asked him to adapt the http://enablingthefuture.org/ prosthetic arm into a Lego man version, and took the logo of the LimbBo foundation and literally made the logo in real life. I took some files shared online of a Lego man, adapted them in CAD, designed some shoes and a t-shirt, ordered some plastic and printed it. What do you think? I think I smashed it! I shipped it to the foundation free of charge and uploaded the files to Thingiverse so anyone can make it free of charge.
“I was asked to design a hearing aid for a young girl who wears a hearing aid, uses a stick, and is learning Braille. I decided to go one step further and asked for images of the doll alongside a ruler to accurately calibrate the model to the correct physical size. I designed a completely bespoke hearing aid that fit her perfectly with the help of 3D modeling software. I ordered a nylon rod from eBay and designed a custom end to create a white stick for her teddy bear. Additionally, I created some 3D-printed Braille toys to help her learn.”
I was asked to make a teddy tracheostomy toy to help normalize a tracheostomy for a little boy whose brother was about to come home from the hospital with one fitted. What do you think of the teddy tracheostomy? Here it is, fitted to my test teddy. Poor little teddy. He’s got club feet and is wearing the world’s only teddy boots and bar. He also has hydrocephalus and a shunt valve. I really feel for this guy sometimes. He also has a cochlear implant and has been shipped to Liverpool and back for making a video with the real Father Christmas!
This one is so unbelievably special its unreal. There’s this little 7 year old girl called Lyra. She’s an absolute hero. She has literally saved her dads life 3 times. She is amazing. Her dad has dialysis at home, and it doesn’t always go well. And when mum is stopping bleeds, Lyra was calling 999, helping move dad, and letting in the paramedics. Her mum got in touch and asked me to make her a teddy bear dialysis machine. So here it is. I put little magnets in the end so it can stick to a safety pin in the teddys arm.
“I had this idea in my head that the shunt valve was the missing piece of the puzzle. When I get fixated on something, I have to make it happen. So, here it is, the world’s only brain jigsaw puzzle where the shunt valve is the missing piece!”
I decided to make a brain jigsaw to help teach the regions of the brain. It didn’t exist, it needed to, so I made it happen!
I was asked to make a toy to help normalise insulin pumps to a child. So here it is, the teddy bear insulin pump.
Some children have their legs permanently in splints, so the teddy foot splint was invented so they can have a teddy just like them.
