My Story, Your Story

This page is for all you fellow clubbies, a place to tell your own story, and to read the story of others dealing with post-club feet. I'll be adding my own story, in segments, here at the top of the page (have to do this in small bursts - day job, ya know?) and you use the Comments selection to post your own story. I hope it helps us all to see we are less alone than we may have thought.

So, Moi.

I was born in 1953, in Southeast Michigan, and was almost immediately ensconced at the Detroit Children's Hospital, under the care of one Dr. Day. He was to be my orthopedist throughout my entire "reconfiguration." Besides the hospital, I was also seen at first weekly, then monthly until I was 16, at the Detroit Orthopedic Clinic. This was a clinic funded by the State of Michigan, and through United Way, March of Dimes, and Easter Seals contributions.

To this clinic came every sort of variation on the human condition, even, and I say this with great gratitude, people who were institutionalized at birth because their disabilities were so extreme. There were children and adults of every age, color, and random differences, and to my young mind, the most interesting and comforting place in the world. My sibs were the "different" ones, to me, as were all those kids at school. To me, "normal" was the wide variation of us who came to get care and treatment from doctors and nurses and students whose sole job, it seemed to me, was to have each of us walk around in front of them while they talked and poked and prodded and nodded their heads about my feet and legs and gait. Who wouldn't suck up all that attention?

My earliest memories, much to my own amazement sometime, are two - the smell of ether, and the image of a large nurse in white standing over my crib. I was probably around 18 months of age, based on some things my mother told me later. Much later, of course. Even today, I am able to close my eyes and bring back that smell. Hospitals no longer use ether, so I haven't had any "booster shots", as it were, but the recall is as strong as ever.

I of course had the serial casting and manipulations (pre-Ponzetti,) and the night splints. The daytime braces came a bit later. My surgeries, with two exceptions, apparently "went well." But around five, I had another surgery to remove a cyst that had developed on the dorsum (top) of my left foot. The result was a ruptured tensor retinaculum, a fascial band that serves to hold down the anterior tibialis tendon. Since then, my anterior tib remains "popped out" and I get occasional irritation from my shoes. A later surgery, at the age of 37, to remove two bone spurs on the posterior calcaneus and posterior talus (rearfoot bones) resulted in a severed surral nerve along the lateral border of my left foot (why is it always my left foot?) This has caused a loss of sensation from the lateral heel to the fourth and fifth toes. And while the sensation is gone, there is deep pain as the deeper nerves have to replace the job of the cutaneous nerves, which they weren't designed for.

Coming next: Home and School Life

As an infant, and probably until age 5, my differences from my sibs was largely in what I was unable to do, and where I sat to eat, and occasionally, waking the entire house while wearing the AFO's I graduated to after the Dennis Browne's were put aside. These braces had metal uprights with a calf band, and elastic straps connected to th front sides of the shoes, to pull, or dorsiflex, the entire foot, upward, thereby continuing to lengthen the achilles tendons. But there was another feature that began to get me called by my earliest pejorative - Frankenstein. The braces also had steel bottoms, to completely stiffen the soles of the shoes. This had two effects, besides the medically designed one - they tended to tear up the sheets, and when I had to get up at night to use the bathroom, the noise woke everyone in the house. Needless to say, I hated them.

I also was unable to play outside whenever I had casts on, but I do recall one very cold and snowy morning, a Saturday, I think (or maybe one of those "snow called on account of school" days) when I really wanted to go outside with the sibs to make a snowman. My mother put three pair of my father's socks over my casts, and then put a pair of his rubber snow shoes on me. I was thrilled to be out there, playing in the snow with my sibs. Until, that is, I stepped into a small snow drift, and when I went to pull out my foot to take the next step, the boot came off. The sibs, of course, laughed - that's what kids do when they see a pratfall. But I didn't understand that then, and I recall this as one of my earliest moments of humiliation.

This humiliation, and other, even worse feelings, began in first grade, when I was pushed down on the playground, and beaten up by several other boys, for wearing "Bozo boots." Braces attached to high-top, brown, round-toed shoes, were an alien invasion, I suppose. This was to become the constant accompaniment to my years in school, right up through high school. Sometimes, the beatings were severe, leaving me twice bleeding on the playground, one of those times also leaving me unconscious. I would be discovered twenty minutes after recess by a teacher looking out the window to see me lying bloody on the playground. Apparently, after a teacher forced the other kids to let me play baseball with them, I missed catching a fly-ball over second base. I was actually playing third base.

There were times in my first two or three years of school where my older sister would come to my defense, but I quickly learned this was not a good idea. The bully's would just wait till she wasn't around, and then just be that much more savage. So I had to endure these assaults, sometimes daily. Complaining to the teachers seldom had any impact. Today, bullying is taken more seriously, but back then, it was largely "just kids being kids." Right. More like kids being monsters. And I got little help from my father. he was all "John Wayne" about it - "Just hit them back," was his favorite response. It mattered little that there was always more than one hitting me. My mother was sympathetic, and offered solace, but had no power to stop the assaults and the constant humiliation. I often wonder what kept me from becoming a drug addict, or pulling a Columbine - I think I had more reason than those kids did. But, the fear seemed to out-weigh the rage, at least in those days. Lucky for me, I suppose.

I took refuge in books, and learning,, and in the woods and fields around me. I spent days outdoors, stalking wild animals, trying to get close to them, just to see if I could do it. I was, as any normal kid would be, fascinated by Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Huck Finn, and especially, Native Americans. I learned to walk as quietly as possible, a compensation, I suspect, for having walked so loudly with my braces.

In books, I was equally fascinated by fiction and fact. I went through what I called my "science of the moment" phase - weather, biology, geology, physics - you name it, i read about it, voraciously. Each subject would captivate me for some varying length of time, until the next one rose up to beckon me into its secrets. I recall getting, in no particular order, a chemistry set, a "Visible Man," a geology kit, on and on. I learned very young how to speed read, and I to this day have an ability to retain and recall books I read forty years ago. This led me to one of the more telling moments of my younger years - the encounter with the "Skeptical Librarian," as I like to call it.

In the summers, I would go to the library, and check out anywhere from ten to fifteen books a week. I did in fact consume them all - I had few friends, and lots of time. I spent that time either stalking animals, climbing trees, especially fruit trees (I once spent an entire day sitting on the top of a giant apple tree, eating apples. I was quite sick for several days, as I recall. but who could resist a fresh picked apple?) And, of course, reading. The summer was just getting started, and I was on my third trip to the library in as many weeks. I returned ten or so books, then spent a blissful hour or so searching for my next week's repast, as it were. When I approached the checkout desk, I was confronted by the elderly librarian, who seemed downright skeptical. "You can't possibly have read all these books," she said, pointing to the stack I'd just returned. She then pointed to my new armfull, and said,"You shouldn't just skim through a book, or you won't really know what it's about." I replied that I had indeed read all those books, and that I'd read this bunch just as thoroughly. I suggested she test me. With a slightly sardonic smile (yes, I already knew that word,) she picked up a book about weather phenomenon, opened it at random, then asked me a question about cumulonimbus clouds, and the conditions under which they were most likely to form. I responded to the specific question, then added additional information from deeper in the book about how such formations are known to produce snow at upper altitudes that may fall as either rain or hail to the ground. She never bothered me about the size of my book pile again.

This compensation for my physical (and social) limitations was a double-edged sword. While my intellect was deepened, my ability to create social bonds was further eroded. I mistakenly believed, for many years, that one's mind, and its continual development, was in fact the primary goal. After all, I would reason, why else have the damn thing inside our skulls if we weren't interested in building that particular muscle as much as possible. Why wasn't Einstein the the one to be emulated, as opposed to Roger Maris, or John Wayne? Not that those individuals didn't have talent, mind you, but that the mind seemed to me far more interesting. This as you may imagine was not the best attitude when it came to making friends, something I was already painfully at a disadvantage at. Obviously, I was smart in some ways, yet incredibly clueless in others.

It wasn't until the middle of high school that I finally found my place in the social fabric. It was the dawning of the age of Aquarius, and the hippies opened the door to a new world for me. Unlike every other group at school, hippies welcomed me with open arms. Music became my new fascination, as well as poetry, and I finally had friends. This, of course, made the bullies even more furious - I was both a crippled freak, and a long-hair. Boy, they had a field day on me. The very last time I was bullied, I was nearly killed. This one jerk, who seemed destined for life imprisonment one day, decided he had to find his place in the bully pecking order, and decided to climb his chosen social ladder starting with me as the bottom rung. Over the course of two weeks, he assaulted me at least a dozen times, one day in particular, three times, a new record! But the last two times were particularly memorable. The first of these occurred as I was walking down the hall to class, my arms full of books. I vaguely heard the sound of someone running from behind. I suddenly felt a great pain burst through my back, and I went flying, striking my face on an open locker door. My wounds required a trip to the local hospital for stitches.

But, as bully's sometimes do, he wasn't through with me. You see, he had done this dastardly deed right under the eyes of the vice-principal. He was, as well he should have been, expelled permanently. For this, something of his own making, he blamed me. One week later, I was walking along a road near the school, headed for a friend's house, when I heard a car approaching, beeping it's horn. As I turned to look, I saw a car with four guys, and immediately recognized the one in the front passenger seat - my erstwhile tormentor. Before I could react, his hand shot out of the window with an object, which he hurled at me as the car went by. A full can of beer hit me directly over my heart, and I went down. The last I recall was all the car's occupants laughing uproariously.

A following car witnessed the entire thing, and stopped to assist me. I was taken to a nearby hospital, and was told I had a broken rib that almost punctured my lung. The doctor told me I was lucky - if it had struck about a half inch to the left, it could have stopped my heart.

Boy, did I love school.

Next: On The Road

I finally escaped from home and school and what I thought was all I felt bad about myself over when I turned 17. I hit the road 7 days after my 17th birthday, and never looked back. I became a part of the Great Hippie Migration of the 60's and 70's. I spent 5+ years traveling, mostly by thumb, all over North America. I crossed Canada nearly ten times, traversed the States more times than I recall, and did a fair amount of travel in Northern and West (Baja) Mexico. I carried a ridiculously heavy backpack, and did some insane things I am still paying for today. I wore these very stiff Austrian hiking boots, and wore anywhere from 1 to 3 Ace wraps at a time. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer back then, I'll freely admit.

In those years, I never told anyone why I limped, deflecting those who asked with a sardonic response something to the effect of, "school injury." It made it easier to deal with, or so I thought at the time. I just didn't want to invite any further humiliation, which is what I'd been escaping from in the first place. So I just limped along, learning to tolerate the pain, and admittedly (hey, it was the times, ya dig?) self-medicating on occasion.

One of the most difficult things for me was feeling comfortable around women. I'd had some real disasters in high school, directly related to my feet and funny shoes, so I tended to protect myself from any possibility of further humiliations. It didn't mean I wasn't attracted - quite the contrary. It just meant I kept waiting for the woman to make the overtures. Which seldom had the desired outcome, as such overtures seldom happened. Even in that era of free love. Silly me.

I have often wondered how my life would have turned out had family and school and other situations had been more supportive and understanding, more accepting of my "differences." This has had the effect of making me far more compassionate of other people's differences from me, whether it be ethnicity, color, disability, gender preference, or any other thing, with one exception. I have zero tolerance for bigotry and intolerance, especially when it arises out of ignorance. For me, it is the incredible diversity of the human species that holds my attention. That clinic taught me all the most important lessons in life, and I am still absorbing the full impact of those lessons.

Next: If The Shoe Fits, Make It

When I was a hippy flitting about the North American Continent, I began making leather crafts - belts, purses, wallets, etc., and after doing that for several years, I finally decided to try my hand at making sandals. Early success at this led me (I couldn't even begin to tell you how) to want to learn custom shoe making. This proved a more arduous career decision than I at first suspected it might be, and I eventually, in an effort to at least get my foot in the door, so to speak, found easier entry to shoe repair. And after about five years of this, I finally found someone who was willing to take me on and give me my start in the "real deal."

As an aside, let me tell you, becoming a shoemaker is by modern standards an insane enterprise. First - you will never be wealthy - not even close. Second, it will take you many years to get even reasonably good at it - there are more than 120 hand operations that go into a custom pair of shoes, a seemingly infinite variety of feet and foot conditions to respond to, a broad range of materials you need to master, many machines you need to not only operate, but learn to adjust and repair, as well, and oh, did I mention the hours invested? This is not a field for the weak-willed, the faint of heart, or those who are in a hurry to get to the top of the field.

And as an added bonus, it plays hell on your neck, back, and especially, your hands. But if you are as big an idealist, er, masochist as I was, this is the job for you!

But I loved the opportunity to make things that made a real and immediate difference in people's daily life. To watch someone come in in pain and frustration and resignation to a life without hope, to them walking out at the end of the process with a smile that can break down doors, well, there is simply no better feeling in the world. Oh, you can't please everyone, believe me. The old ladies wearing Ferragamos who expected their completely destroyed feet to fit in shoes that looked just like the ones that were killing them was - how should I put this? - a royal pain, never to be satisfied. But people who had either been born with their disability, or who developed it at a young age, were incredibly grateful for every small increment of improvement, every degree of reduction of their pain.

After doing this for another five years, I got the opportunity to run the Mechanical Orthopedics Lab at the California College of Podiatric Medicine, and it was there I first learned about the science of biomechanics. I took to it instantly. I audited every class I could sneak into, even taking the tests (one must be prepared to accept a certain amount of humiliation if one is to ever improve. I think Einstein may have said that. Or perhaps, Sid Ceasar.) And I even had an advantage over the students, who had gone through pre-med, and had all the basic nomenclature down pat. I had biomechanics in my hands. Making shoes, casting client's feet for their lasts, shaping those lasts, watching hundreds and hundreds of people walk in the results of your work - these were all excellent preparation. Book study and working in clinic learning gait analysis was merely putting the outer layer on the beast, as it were. I was no match for the academicians, but I was better at all of them in translating the clinical findings into a functional response to what the patient required. I also learned orthotic casting and manufacture, which added an entirely new dimension to my skill set.

More to come...

Da Bidness

I eventually started my own lab, making shoes and orthotics. I started with little capital, but worked my tail off - 12-15 hour days were not uncommon, 6-7 days a week sometimes. I was unable to afford an employee for the first four years, and really wore several new holes in my head, as a result. The business doubled in size every year, and I had a very loyal customer base, but by year seven, I was nearing burnout. I couldn't find financing to deal with the growth (funny thing - you have collateral, they'll loan you the money, if you don't, they won't. I actually had a banker tell me that if I already had the $50 K I was asking for, they'd be happy to loan it to me. When I told him that, if I'd actually had the $50K, I wouldn't need his money, he looked horrified, and said I should NEVER use my own money. No wonder we have such a screwed economy in this country!), but the final straw was the '89 earthquake. My lab was three blocks from the freeway that collapsed, and we suffered quite a bit of damage. So, about five months later, I sold out to my only local competitor, and went to work for them.

Years later, after finally exiting that firm, I went on to work for another lab in Southern California, then later launched a consulting firm. I spent many years traveling to other states, Canada, and the UK, training other labs in various techniques and technologies, and launching an international laboratory association, which I served as executive manager of for seven years. Finally, I was asked to contribute two chapters to a text book on lower extremity biomechanics, by my first mentor in biomechanics, Dr. Ron Valmassy.

The consulting business eventually lead me to go back to school to get a certificate in training, and I eventually ended up doing training in high-tech, which led to the next thing, and well, here I am today. Which is just a shorthand way of saying, I'm off in a new direction, though I still consult on two specific types of clients - post club feet, and leg length discrepancy cases. But, its no longer my day job. My hands have gone to hell, my neck is now fused, my feet have gotten worse, my knees are garbage, but still, I can't complain all that much. I'm fortunate to have had such an interesting career thus far, and even more so to have been able to have a positive effect on many people's lives and reduction of their pain.

Well, that's about all I want to say about my story (gotta save something for the movie version, eh?) Now, how about you?

What's YOUR story?