Kenny Easterday

Kenny Easterday

"The Man With Half a Body"

$1.25

Born: December 7, 1973

Vol XCIII, No. 311

Birth

Notoriety

Sacral Agenesis / Caudal Regression

First Amputation

• Shin bones used to replace missing spinal column.
• Expected to live 6 months - 1 year

• 1:25,000 births
• Portions of the spine is missing
• Lumbar spine is floating without connection to hips
• Spine was exposed
• Legs form abnormally
• Almost webbed frog like
• When this nerve abnormality is present
• bowel can be affected, leading to constipation or incontinence
• bladder can be affected as well, causing urinary tract infections or urinary incontinence
• kidney damage is possible if the bladder is under high pressure
• This condition is congenital
• Sacrum and corresponding nerves are usually completed around week 4 of development
• Problem occurs between the third and seventh week of pregnancy
• Exact cause isn't known, but an insufficient amount of folic acid may play a role
• Strong correlation between sacral agenesis and maternal diabetes.

Second Amputation

• Removed rest of the legs up to hips
• Expected to live 17 years

• Local journalist wrote an article about him and how he rolls around on his skate board
• Everyone in his town started to notice him
• 1987 at 12 years old, he played himself in the film "My Kid Brother" based on his life
• He traveled the world with his dad after the premier
• 1988 Olympic torch carrier
• No one would hire him until Jerry Springer showed up at his door offering him a job when he was 21
• Reoccurring as "The Messenger"

Parents

Mom

Dad

I wasn't cut in half, I just have no legs

that's why I can walk on my hands.

Health Related Issues

• Extremely close relationship
• Taught Kenny how to walk on his hands.
• "Your mom walks like a duck, walk behind her and watch how she does it."

• Scared of Kenny as a baby
• Scared to touch and hold him, she thought she would hurt him.
• "He was a lazy baby, Kenny didn't move much in the womb, that's how I knew something was wrong."
• "I tried to give him his freedom so he could get comfortable with this own limits."

Timeline and Daily Life

• Osteoporosis
• 5/7 stages
• Doctors want to add a rod
• Arthritis in wrists and hands
• From walking on them
• Neck filling with fluid from pressure
• Can feels his bones through his butt when he sits
• Has to sit at an angle
• Shoulders hold a lot of pressure
• Kidney stents placed in 2010
• Never wants prostheses
• Too heavy and painful
• He thought that they made he "Handicapped"

March 2009

Doctors Appointment

• Relationship struggles
• 1 month later Nikki moves out
• Moves back in with family
• Does dishes
• Vacuums
• Cuts the grass, etc.

April 2010

Personal Life

• Stepped on one of his tubes
• They want to do a bladder replacement surgery
• Doesn't want to go under general anesthesia
• Stents were local
• 2 weeks later, stents cleared up infection

• Bacterial infections
• Bladder does not have proper nerves from sacrum
• Can not empty completely
• Back flow into kidneys
• Painful to sit with stents
• Got an electric scooter to save his hands, wrists, and shoulders
• "It's not a wheelchair, I don't have to be pushed around in it, helped into, this I can move around on my own. I am still independent."

• Broke wrists sledding when younger
• Ability to walk flat on hands
• Went to a handicapped school
• He was forced to
• Dropped out when he was 17
• Married first wife, Sarah, at 19 and was divorced 2 years later
• Met current fiance, Nikki, while working on Jerry Springer in 1990s
• Wants children of his own
• Nikki has 2 and can't have anymore
• Everyone asks if he has his private parts
• They want to know what it would be like to be with someone like him