Freakish Feet

Mr. Sign and I were comparing our body parts to how they used to look. He remarked about how big my knees were compared to his. He wasn't being mean, just stating the facts. I didn't realize that he didn't know that I had braces on my legs as a child and corrective shoes until I was in my teens (which did nothing for my condition).

Knock knees is the term my dad always used in referring to my leg problems. I always hated the ugly corrective shoes that cost my parents over $500 a pair (in the 70's).

Because my tibia and fibia were rotated to the outside of my legs, my feet followed. When I walked, my feet were turned at 45 degree angles making me look like a duck when I walked. This condition was also complicated by the fact that my feet are as flat a pancakes and have an extra bone in them.



My maternal grandmother was embarrassed by the way I walked and always yelled at me to walk with my feet facing forward. I tried hard, but after a while I would grow tired and my feet would go back to their natural position.

When I was 13, I was taken to the University of Michigan's Children's Hospital to have my legs and feet looked at. I saw three different doctors the first of which was amazed by how flat my arches were. He took pictures and told me that my feet would be famous in medical journals (lol).

One of the doctors decided that the only way to fix my legs was to break both of them and reset them. Another doctor told us that because I was past puberty, it was too late for me. His diagnosis was that I would be wheelchair bound by the time I was 18 (I guess I proved him wrong).

It wasn't until I was 14 that this whole deformity bothered me mentally. I was at a football game walking by myself and three very popular older guys were walking behind me quacking and making fun of the way I walked. I was devastated but took that energy and put it into teaching myself to walk with my feet forward. It was one of the most painful things I've ever done. At first I could only do it for a little while because my legs would get so tired. Over time, I was able to totally retrain myself to walk almost normally.

Mr. Sign never knew this story or the reason why my feet tend to stray outward when I get tired. I guess it was something I wanted to leave in the past, but it's part of what makes me who I am today.