Cherie Lewis, 29, from New Plymouth, New Zealand, has a beautiful hole but an unhappy life. Cherie lost her leg to bone cancer when she was 6. She was too young to realize how much it would affect her. In her teens, Cherie began to feel strange stares and was stared at whenever she went out. It made her uncomfortable and helpless.

In her early 20s, Cherie began to realize that since her disability would always attract attention, instead of avoiding it, she'd better face the bleak reality of her life and deal with it in a more positive way. Her decision to pursue a career as a model was bold in one step, not an easy path for a girl with a physical disability. She has since starred in lingerie ads for major brands like Lambera and Modi Boddi, sharing her photos on social media. However, it sparked an online backlash from "keyboarders" who accused Cherie of faking her disability in order to please and increase traffic.

Cherie, who was born in New Zealand, was a bubbly girl until her health suddenly went wrong at the age of six, when she suffered from recurring fevers and a persistent pain in her left hip. She struggled to keep up with other children while running at school. Anxious, the parents took Cherie to a number of doctors, who eventually diagnosed her with a rare form of osteosarcoma. It's a type of bone cancer where tumors look like early bone cells and help form new bone tissue, making it easy to misdiagnose. Doctors told Cherie's parents they would need to amputate her entire left leg and half of her pelvis in order to save their child.

Growing up, Cherie never saw an amputee, except once a year when she watched the Paralympics on television. This type of amputation, known technically as an external hemipectomy, is, needless to say, rare and dangerous, and even if it is successful, it is difficult to get a prosthetic leg, as is often the case with other amputees.
The operation was a success, but cherie lost her entire left leg forever. For a six-year-old girl, the sky of childhood turned dark at the age of running wild outside.

At first, Cherie had a hard time adjusting to life with only one leg. She didn't want to go out, was very protective and hated standing outside and being stared at all the time. She spent countless nights lying in bed, crying as she looked at happy pictures of herself before her amputation, asking her mother why it had happened to her. Countless times in the morning wake up, she fantasized, stretching, his body has two legs. Cherie says that when she was a teenager, she didn't believe she would ever get a job, fall in love, start a family or do anything else normal people could do. "I always stood out wherever I went," she says. "It eventually made me give up the things I loved, like sports." "I also try to blend in as much as POSSIBLE when I'm in school." Destiny is fair, when it closes a door for you, it opens a window for you. At 16, Cherie attended fashion school and discovered her love of clothes and fashion.

"When I was about 16 I went to fashion school and from there I started styling before moving to Melbourne at the age of 20 to further pursue a career in fashion." Cherie's first serious modelling job was for lingerie brand Lambera, where she gradually built up her confidence and realized for the first time her unique value. She started bravely showing off her body, and her unique beauty gained her the attention of netizens around the world. Just as Cherie was beginning a new chapter in her life, something happened. Five years ago, she spotted an amputee model just like herself on Instagram. Her name is Qasemi, and Cherie was surprised to see that qasemi posted photos of herself in a bathing suit and even showed her scars. While she shares a lot of photos of herself, she has never had the courage to share something revealing about her body like the swimsuit photo. In these photos, Qasimi, looking beautiful and working hard to establish herself as a model and disability advocate, took away the rest of Cherie's fears at a stroke.

Cherie has also boldly taken to social media to post swimsuit photos of herself, and after more than 20 years, she can finally fully express herself. Qasemi was cherie's guide, and the two bonded on social media until she passed away a few years ago. Cherie felt that part of her friend's life was still in her, giving her more courage to move forward. Her connection with the disabled community made Cherie more aware of the need for society to understand them, which gave her the confidence to continue her modelling career. Before she got into modelling, Cherie also fretted that she couldn't be a model because she was too short. To cherie's delight, another brand called Modi Boddy also came to her door, a number one leak-proof lingerie brand in the UK. 'What I love about working with Modi Bodi is that they don't use different types of models for branding, but they really believe in the importance of doing it,' she says.

That's why Cherie wanted to get into modeling in the first place and, in her heart, really cared about advocacy channels for people with disabilities. I knew the easiest way I could do this was to spread my own image and promote the influence of people with disabilities in society." "I want disabled children to see me, they don't know what will happen in the future. I wanted to break into the industry that has always made up stories for us, and this time I wanted to write my own stories and show who we really are." Cherie is now confident about who she is and what she looks like and is now fully integrated into normal life, having her own career, her own friends and being part of the world's 24-hour online fashion shows. In a fashion show where all the models shoot and perform their catwalk shows at home, Cherie Louise, like any normal girl, begins her day with joy at this moment.
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