The Leg Brace

This is the leg brace I got in the middle of my third pregnancy, and wore until the day of my amputation surgery. It was my first test in having a visible disability. It gave me good support and I had to quit caring about what others thought.

Day of Surgery

We wrote "STOP! Not this leg, this one" with an arrow toward my left leg. We thought it was funny until the nurse at the hospital actually made me write "YES" on my left leg. Notice how my big toe doesn't lay flat on the floor and my entire foot is rolled to the outside. It made shoe buying difficult.

The Constant Hole

Nearly the whole time I wore the leg brace I battled this spot on the bottom of my foot. No matter how much the brace was modified, the spot never healed up and sometimes even grew into a deep hole, like the story of my bleeding cast on the weekend we spent in Pennsylvania.

I took this picture on the day before one of my surgeries. I was in middle school and still young enough to believe that the doctors could make huge improvements to my foot. It was supposed to be my terrible 'before' picture. There was never a need to take an 'after' picture. Nothing changed.

My sad little foot, they day before we said good bye.

After so many surgeries trying to repair the deformity, my foot lost all sensation and muscle tone. I had no range of motion and was unable to lift it up when I walked. This is where the leg brace was a huge help.

You can so clearly see the withered calf on my left side, with the permanent bruise from my leg brace. My left foot not only rolled out, but that toe just would not lay down, making shoes very hard to fit.