OK, so, today I go in for an MRI on both feet. I can't wait to see the film! Finally, a starring roll. In cross-sections, no less. Actually, it should be quite interesting. Given the number of surgeries I've had, there has to be a mess-o-scar tissue in there, which might make my doc a bit dizzy as he tries to make sxzense of it. That's right, sxzense, that is exactly what I meant. Or not.
So, I thought this would be a good time to try and enumerate all the surgeries, therapies, and hardware that have been applied to me footsies over the years, simply by way of something fun to do. That OK?
1. Manual stretching and serial casting, starting at two weeks of age. This continued until I was two or so.
2. Tendo-Achilles Z-plasty, to lengthen the Achilles, B/L.
3. Medial soft tissue releases, B/L.
4. Anterior Tibialis lateral transfers, B/L.
5. Dennis Brown night splints.
6. Surgery to remove a bone cycst on the dorsum of my left foot, that resulted in the rupture of my tensor retinaculum, a fascial band that holds the anterior tibial tendon against the foot. The result is that my left anterior tib bow-strings away from my foot, and makes it a perfect site for shoe irritation.
7. Dorsi-flex assit night splints. These had metal uprights and a steel plate along the bottom, with wide elastic bands that attached to both sides near the toes, and extended to the calf band. They were supposed to hold my feet in a dorsiflexed position all night. The fun part was sounding like Frankenstein's monster when I got up at night to go to the bathroom. I woke everybody, because there was no way to walk in stealth mode, ya dig? Plus, I tore through sheets at an amazing rate!
8. Twister straps. These were the ultimate form of torture. I wore them when I was in the third, fourth, and fifth grade, where they presented an especially delightful experience in gym class. You see, I had to wear a girdle. Yep, a girdle. The wide elastic bands attached directly to my brown, round-toed, orthopedic shoes (the height of fashion, dontcha know) on the outside near the front of each shoe. The elastic bands were then wrapped around my legs three times, spiral fashion, and then attached to a girdle under my clothes. That is, unless I was changing for gym class, where I got to put on a show for the class, whose expertise at humiliation and bullying was significantly better than my expertise in being a duck. (As in water off a ....) Plus, they left rather painful welts in a spiral around my legs - when I removed them at night, I remember the pain being enough to make me cry.
9. Those Damn Shoes - I hated them - nobody anywhere ever wore brown, round-toed laced high-top shoes - except me. Took a lot of crap for that, in case you were interested.
10. The last surgery (to date) involved the removal of two bone spurs on my left foot - one was posterior calcaneus, and the other posterior talus, and they clapped hands every step. The docs who did the cutting managed to sever the distal third of my sural nerve, making the outside, or lateral, border of my foot permanently numb. Marvelous!
Another memory - when I was little, and having casted feet, I remember vividly the process for removing the casts. After a few weeks, as you might suspect, my feet and ankles would be itching like the blazes. The technicians would use a cast-cutter to remove them - the cast cutter has a sharp, circular blade, but it vibrates instead of rotating. Let me tell you, once you got past the fear caused by the noise those things make, you quickly came to realize how much the crazy thing made you tickle. And I mean like crazy tickle. Then, after the casts were taken off, there was all that dry skin, and residue around the surgical site that was crusted on. They had to soak my legs, then use a stiff brush to get all that stuff off, and that, my friends, did NOT tickle - it hurt like the fires of heck!
Funny thing is - these days? All I wear are high-top, round-toed, lace-up boots. At least now, they're black.
So, I thought this would be a good time to try and enumerate all the surgeries, therapies, and hardware that have been applied to me footsies over the years, simply by way of something fun to do. That OK?
1. Manual stretching and serial casting, starting at two weeks of age. This continued until I was two or so.
2. Tendo-Achilles Z-plasty, to lengthen the Achilles, B/L.
3. Medial soft tissue releases, B/L.
4. Anterior Tibialis lateral transfers, B/L.
5. Dennis Brown night splints.
6. Surgery to remove a bone cycst on the dorsum of my left foot, that resulted in the rupture of my tensor retinaculum, a fascial band that holds the anterior tibial tendon against the foot. The result is that my left anterior tib bow-strings away from my foot, and makes it a perfect site for shoe irritation.
7. Dorsi-flex assit night splints. These had metal uprights and a steel plate along the bottom, with wide elastic bands that attached to both sides near the toes, and extended to the calf band. They were supposed to hold my feet in a dorsiflexed position all night. The fun part was sounding like Frankenstein's monster when I got up at night to go to the bathroom. I woke everybody, because there was no way to walk in stealth mode, ya dig? Plus, I tore through sheets at an amazing rate!
8. Twister straps. These were the ultimate form of torture. I wore them when I was in the third, fourth, and fifth grade, where they presented an especially delightful experience in gym class. You see, I had to wear a girdle. Yep, a girdle. The wide elastic bands attached directly to my brown, round-toed, orthopedic shoes (the height of fashion, dontcha know) on the outside near the front of each shoe. The elastic bands were then wrapped around my legs three times, spiral fashion, and then attached to a girdle under my clothes. That is, unless I was changing for gym class, where I got to put on a show for the class, whose expertise at humiliation and bullying was significantly better than my expertise in being a duck. (As in water off a ....) Plus, they left rather painful welts in a spiral around my legs - when I removed them at night, I remember the pain being enough to make me cry.
9. Those Damn Shoes - I hated them - nobody anywhere ever wore brown, round-toed laced high-top shoes - except me. Took a lot of crap for that, in case you were interested.
10. The last surgery (to date) involved the removal of two bone spurs on my left foot - one was posterior calcaneus, and the other posterior talus, and they clapped hands every step. The docs who did the cutting managed to sever the distal third of my sural nerve, making the outside, or lateral, border of my foot permanently numb. Marvelous!
Another memory - when I was little, and having casted feet, I remember vividly the process for removing the casts. After a few weeks, as you might suspect, my feet and ankles would be itching like the blazes. The technicians would use a cast-cutter to remove them - the cast cutter has a sharp, circular blade, but it vibrates instead of rotating. Let me tell you, once you got past the fear caused by the noise those things make, you quickly came to realize how much the crazy thing made you tickle. And I mean like crazy tickle. Then, after the casts were taken off, there was all that dry skin, and residue around the surgical site that was crusted on. They had to soak my legs, then use a stiff brush to get all that stuff off, and that, my friends, did NOT tickle - it hurt like the fires of heck!
Funny thing is - these days? All I wear are high-top, round-toed, lace-up boots. At least now, they're black.
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