I have been dealing with some medical problems the past month. I haven't wanted to write much on it because the emotions I'm experienced are not on the positive side and this blog is supposed to be about loving your body and developing and maintaining high self-esteem. And right now I'm not loving my body and my self-esteem is taking some really hard hits. After talking with a colleague he told me I should really blog about it I did some thinking and decided to write about what I'm going through. Part of loving your body and maintaining good levels of self-esteem is also acknowledging that there are time when you hate your body and you feel worthless.
So, I'm going to start a special series regarding my on going medical problems. I'm going to be honest and expose all sort of things about myself that I don't really like to show off. It's not going to be pretty but being sick isn't supposed to be pretty. Being sick is not like in movies, where the hero or heroine are pale with circles under their eyes but still managed to look beautiful. And sometimes people who are ill don't look ill, like me.
So here goes...
I was born with a congenital birth defect. My left foot and lower part of my leg are shorter than my right. When I tell people this they have a tendency to say, "Oh I have the same thing. Lots of people have that." I'm not sure if they're trying to make me feel better by showing me that I'm "normal" like everyone else or if they're trying to tell me that I'm being a drama queen. Either way, my birth defect is not the same as everyone else with a millimeter difference in arms and legs.
My leg and foot differences --an inch and half-- are big enough that I've had a life time of issues. When I was born my foot was bent forward meaning my toes touched my kneecap. I was put in a cast for several weeks. My mother was in tears believing she'd done something wrong, my father was just freaked out. After lots of different doctors, I was finally put into the care of a pediatrician who knew exactly what was going on and sent me to see an orthopedic leg and foot specialist.
What caused my leg and foot problems was just series of uncontrollable events. I was the first born and so my mother's womb and uterus weren't as stretchy. So, I was cramped. I also shifted around causing my left leg and foot to press up against the womb wall while the right was hanging loose allowing it to grow. I had regular visits to a podiatrist and when I got older and started wearing proper shoes my parents had to buy me sturdy shoes with lots of support and put a lift on my left shoe.
I hated those shoes and the lift. The shoes were always brown leather Oxfords that looked, to me, more like boys' shoes than girls' shoes. I wanted to wear patent leather Mary Jane's but they weren't sturdy enough. And then there was the lift. The lift was always a different color from the sole on the shoe. If the sole was black the lift was white. The lift always stood out so that everyone could see it.
From the age of six to nine that shoe and its lift always made me an object of curiosity and a target of bullying. I wanted nothing more than to be just like everyone else. I looked forward to the day when I would have the operation that would fix my foot and I wouldn't have to wear ugly boy shoes with a mismatched lift.
When I was seven we moved from Illinois to Texas. The podiatrist in Texas decided that I didn't need the operation or the lift. He'd decided that I the inch and half wasn't significant enough to put me through the pain of an operation and recovery.. So, I was cleared and I didn't have to wear the lift anymore.
However, because I didn't have the surgery this put my back at an angle which sometimes caused back pain and at one point I had back spasms. I had a visible limp when I wore shoes with a heel higher than two inches and my hip also hurt when I walked in two inch heels. Finally, there were times when my right leg would hurt from putting the weight of my body on it for too long.
Even with all these problems I wasn't in too bad shape until recently. A month ago I stood up to leave work and my left foot hurt. I thought it might be my ballet flats which have very little arch support. I went home changed shoes and headed off to do an event for a charity. Well, the pain started to get worse and I decided to go to the doctor.
At first my doctor thought it was a strained tendon and advised me to roll my foot over a frozen bottle of ice water four times a day. After about a week of trying this I decided to go back. They did some x-rays and called me to tell me I had a congenital birth defect (duh) and sent me to a podiatrist.
The podiatrist confirmed that I do have congenital birth defect (again duh) and went on to explain what was happening with my foot. Apparently, my body has been auto correcting my step so that I can complete the step and not fall over. This auto correction means that I step on the outside of my left leg which causes lots of pressure. It also causes my leg bones to bow which causes the auto correct, which causes the pain, which causes the bowing...you get the picture. Since, we live in a small town the doctor decided to send me to the big city of Houston to see an orthopedic surgeon there.
The new doctor wants to do an operation that will lengthen my left leg and straighten it out. This will relieve the pressure and basically make me better.
I'm scared and I'm worried but I'm also not one to get bogged down in fears. I just suck it up and go for it. So, I'm sucking it up and going for it which is proving much harder than it should.
So, there you have it. I'm going to continue to blog as much as possible. Although, I will be writing about my leg I'm going to try and not make the blog all about that because really who wants to read about me whining and crying, lol.
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