Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash
This post is intended to be the first of many about my use of braces and hiking boots to enable me to continue walking. It’s been a great journey, but, with some challenges. I hope that you will learn something helpful by my sharing these experiences. As always, speak with your doctor for specific medical advice.
The year was late 1999. The pain and issues with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) were really starting to be, well, very painful and challenging. Thankfully, I have a fairly positive attitude which was really helping me at this point. However, with the new challenges to walking, I needed some kind of assistance.
My wife and I had decided on a family doctor which I later learned was good about thinking “outside the box” for my care. She knew a doctor who made braces for people in many situations so I was referred to see her.
My appointment went well. It was the usual battery of tests to see how I walk, what seems to be wrong with my feet, and how she can help. Obviously, it’s CMT. However, as you may know, it affects everyone differently, even within the same family. For me, I had the blessing of having the most severe case. So, I didn’t have any family members to ask questions and went on my own way to learn how to help myself.
The Orthopedic doctor took a cast of my feet and calves from just below the knees down. I sat a few minutes, or less, while the casting material set. Once dry, she marked out the pressure points of my feet onto the cast. WOW! Well, with deformed feet, there are plenty of places to mark. Once she finished, a small saw machine was used to cut the mold. That was a weird experience as it grabbed more than a few leg hairs, that I have just spent all of my life growing, as it went up and down my leg. It wasn’t painful, just tingly weird. It did set my nerves off because of the constant vibration but once it settled, I was good.
I waited about two weeks for the braces to arrive and they finally did. I went to the orthopedics office to get them and I’ll admit that I was a bit discouraged about having to get these braces. Yes, I knew they would help me to walk and hopefully reduce the energy it takes for me to do it. However, it’s not how anyone would want to spend life.
The braces fit great. All I had to do was put them on and put the leather straps across my leg through a metal loop on the other side and tighten. Easy enough, yes. But, hardly the last step in this journey. Learning to walk again. Learning to drive again. Learning to just plain ol’ live again would be the new life for me… after I bought more than a few walking shoes a size larger than I normally would wear.
This post continues at: Charcot-Marie-Tooth: My Journey to using Arizona Braces.