Ms Cringle – who lost her left leg in a London Underground train accident in 1996 – has returned home from Sydney’s Macquarie University Hospital to embark on a mission to lengthen her leg.

During the next 50-60 days Ms Cringle, of Bolwarra, will turn an external fixator (attached to her leg) a millimetre a day.

If Ms Cringle’s leg lengthens at least five centimetres, she will become the first person in the world to undergo both the leg lengthening procedure and have a bionic leg attached.

“My leg should already be two millimetres longer so I’ll go to Sydney at the end of the week for x-rays and we’ll see how things are going,” she said. “But it’s such a relief to have started it all because we have been talking about it for so long.”

Late last month a team of physicians removed the end of Ms Cringle’s amputated femur.

The next stage will be the insertion of a macroporous rod into the stunted femur. Lastly, a German-made bionic leg will be attached.

With the leg lengthening process expected to be completed next month, Ms Cringle is hoping to start 2012 with her dream of walking becoming a reality.

“I feel fine about everything. The pain management is under control and I’m starting to get used to the fixator.

“I have knocked it a few times which is very painful but other than that everything is good,” she said.

“I just feel like now I’m getting so close to being able to walk again.”