Healing is not easy. When it does happen, it's the most amazing Universal gift ever! Except I'm in crisis mode right now. Every cell in my body is screaming with pain. There are no thank yous on the tip of my tongue.
I had never tried to heal myself. I was led to believe that I was a lsot cause. My folks did the best they could, the best they knew how. I don't blame anyone.
I never tell anyone about my health. Why? Because it does one of two things. It either scares people away or it makes them scared of me. They become frightened taht I'll break or unsure how to act around me. Some people get over it. Others fidget too much in front of me. They want to carry my bag for me, make sure I don't lift a pencil.
Only in the safety of my room do I not worry about hiding. I never worry about shoes,clothing, or the things that could go wrong. My legs don't fit this body. I was born with clubbed feet. Yup, both of them. The left is worse than the right one. Yeah, I know people have been known to do very physical activities with club feet. EVERYONE is different. I got the basket of never-ending pain and growing disfigurement. Take that!
The very best visual way I can describe my birth defect is that it's like being born crippled without the spinal cord affected. My feet were dangling when I was born. One of my high school friends suggested that I wasn't properly reincarnated. Maybe I was really supposed to be a fish. I have always found this thought to be of great comfort. (Thank you, Jeff!) I am planning a mermaid tattoo, somewhere on my arm.
I was born 2 months premature. I was tiny. I could be held in one hand, disappear in a throw pillow. I don't know any details of the surgery. I tried to get my records,but the hospital burns them after 7 years. LAME!!!! I wore casts up to my thighs while I healed from surgery. Later, the casts were shortened to just below my knee. I was always kicking them off. A rebel from the very beginning, see.
I had to wear special shoes. Doubt they did any good. I'm sure it was just more money for my folks. Anyway, my earliest memory is at 1 1/2 years. I had to wear these shoes when I slept. It was a weird contraption. The shoes had a bolt at the bottom. There was a metal bar to be placed from one shoe to the other. It was to keep my legs straight. Supposedly so that my bones could heal properly. I have no idea if it did me more harm than good.
My parents would double knot my shoes. I'd still manage to kick off a shoe in the middle of the night. I'd wake up with a leg hanging over the crib, bar and shoe hanging. A serious drunk midget scene.
Around the age of six, I had a different pair of special shoes I was required to wear. I don't know why - again. Now when I say I had to wear them, what I mean is that some doctor developed a god complex and brought it to work the day I was seen. I recall nothing of the shoes other than they were slippery and ugly. I could not play with other kids because these shoes had me falling non-stop. I sat alone and in my head a lot. I was completely traumatized by these shoes. I still panic about the idea of slipping or falling anywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment