Three-year-old Scarlette had to miss her first Halloween because she was recovering from an arm amputation. After chemotherapy failed to get rid of her Undifferentiated High Grade Spindle Cell Sarcoma, the surgery was necessary to stop the cancer from spreading. But now, Halloween is a great day for her — because she gets custom-made costumes.
A story submitted to the Love What Matters Facebook page by Smiles For Scarlette, a Facebook page dedicated to her, explains how she became known for her Halloween costumes. It started with her second Halloween, when she dressed up as a doll with an arm that had come out. Stuffing spilled out where one might expect the arm to be.
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"The next year, I took her to the halloween store and let her choose whatever she wanted and she chose a skeleton dress," the post reads. "So, I went to work, altered the dress to fit her, then made her a skeleton arm out of plastic bones. She LOVED IT!! She carries the arm around still, to this day, and calls it her 'other arm.' At the Halloween party we attended, she would keep leaving her arm places and then run around screaming, 'Where's my other arm!!???!?' It was hysterical." This year, she went to the store to pick out her own fabric to make a wig.
By having fun with her one arm, Scarlette's showing people it isn't not a topic people need to shy away from or be afraid of (unless it's the basis for a skeleton costume, perhaps). "She embraces her missing arm, and tells everyone that, 'With two arms I'm sick, and with one arm I'm not!'" the post explains. "She likes to tell people silly things too like, 'I left it in the dish washer, it's over there on the floor, or the doctor took it away!' She's definitely sassy and has no problem talking to other kids and adults about it. It's so important to us to show people the love and happiness that radiates from this little girl."