Young amputee sets sights on Paralympics

By Ashlee Tulloch

Bryall McPherson was a promising young tennis player, until circumstances forced her to hang up her racquet four years ago.

Now she is making waves as a world class swimmer.

If she is not in the pool training six times a week, McPherson is studying at university, hip-hop dancing or line umpiring on a local court.

And McPherson is still piling more onto her plate.

"[My dream is] to go to the London Paralympics, that's the ultimate dream for me," she says.

At 22, McPherson only has one arm.

In many ways the faulty serve helped save her, alerting doctors to an aggressive tumor in her arm which was likely to take her life unless amputated - a choice McPherson never questioned.

"Halfway through the chemo they told me I [could] keep my arm [and] I'd be dead a year late or I'd take the arm off and be able to live a longer happier life," she says. "But it would be different life, and at that stage I just thought - I want to live."

And it was that passion for life that mum eve says helped her cope.

"One time when I was in hospital sitting and crying and keep asking the question why Bryall, she's so fit and healthy," says her mum Eve.

"She suddenly come to me and said 'mum, either you commit suicide or walk with me and still be here'," she says.

It wasn't just her arm that was shattered in 2008 but her hopes of becoming a professional tennis player.

After loosing a tennis scholarship to North Carolina she sought after a new dream.

"I YouTubed Paralympics swimmers and Sophie Pascoe comes up, and I watched her and I was like, she's only got one and a half legs, that's amazing. I could absolutely do this."

And she has, currently holding 10 New Zealand Paralympics records.

And with sights set on London, her qualifying campaign gets underway next month in Hamilton.

Cancer may have taken her arm, but nothing is holding this girl back.


Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Young-amputee-...