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[quote=Anonymous]I was born pigeon toed with no arch supports and one leg shorter then the other. When I was about 10 a neighbors infant was put in a body cast and my mother told me that was the other alternative to my problems that the doctor gave them. They chose their course of action based on their finances at the time, my father working nights and going to college during the day while my mother was home with me. Also, she was pregnant and would not be able to lift me.

I wore the night brace with the shoes from my earliest memory up until I was 12. I'm in my late 50's now. I have so so many memories of those years. The corrective shoes I was forced to wear all the time, always feeling heavy and clumsy and awkward. The unending physical and mental teasing because of those shoes. No allowed to go to sleepover or have people sleep over because of the night brace. Not allowed to go to overnight camp because of the brace. Crying because my legs hurt so badly. Being unable to turn in bed because I was tucked in so tight. Learning to swim at 3.5yrs then swimming multiple times a week until I was 14, early on hearing my mother describe it as physical therapy. Being hyper-active, drugged for it and always moving but feeling so heavy and slow. Exercises nightly going up and down on my toes. Never being allowed to wear sneakers, not even on girl scout outings, vacations at the beach, haying up at the farm. Learning to swim at 3.5yrs then swimming multiple times a week until I was 14, early on hearing my mother describe it as physical therapy. When I got older and begged for sneakers my mother told me the doctor told them if they allowed me to go around in sneakers I'd be disabled and in a wheelchair by the time I was 30.

I was hyper-active and drugged for it. I wanted to play any and every sport I was introduced do only I was so slow and clumsy nobody would pick me for their teams. Didn't stop me but did send me home in tears at times. I learned to love swimming and the feeling of lightness and freedom it gave me. I started being allowed to wear Keds on Girl Scout hikes and would come home then cry myself to sleep from the pain in my legs, but I never stopped going or wearing the Keds. At 9yrs I begged so hard to play organized softball my father talked to the doctor and my mother saying I should be allowed even if it meant coming out of the shoes and into a pair of cleats. I didn't start out as some wonder player, I was a klutz. LOL But ... all the years with those damned shoes paid off because I was fast. I felt lighter than air and I could really sprint. In the beginning I was in agony after every practice and game and I still had to wear the shoes during the day and at night but gradually, the pain got less and less.

I came out of the shoes during the day at 11 and got my first real pair of sneakers and never looked back. My mother took away the night brace and stopped the nightly exercises when I was 12. By 15 I was playing competitive and school softball, snow skiing, long distance running and of course, soccer. In an era where there was no such thing as soccer moms and at 14 was playing on a 16-18 women's team because they couldn't field enough players. It was so unusual there were only 7 female teams in a 6 county area and major city. I was no natural athlete but I became above average in everything I did because I loved it. I worked and ran and swam and practiced not to get good or get recognition but because I loved it all so much. The feeling of running in sneakers and cleats, always feeling so light and free. I was still doing all those things in my 40's, but not serious competing. Coed soccer, coed slow-pitch softball teams, modified fast pitch women's softball, snow skiing every couple weeks in the winter, and running for the stress release. I injured my back in my mid forties and had to quit it all and before I was fifty I was forced to stop working and go on disability.

So, I don't know if the brace did anything. I did thank my mother for doing what she could and sticking with it because doctors told her to. Then for letting me go and do the things I longed to try and loved to do even though she didn't approve, they weren't ladylike activities. I was a difficult child from Day 1, with hyper activity, physical problems, a huge stubborn streak, and a real smart-ass mouth. My petite ladylike charm and model school graduate of a mother never understood me. But she always tried and she always loved me. And I lasted at lot longer on my own two sneakered feet then the doctor told my parents I ever would.[/quote]

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