My story continued from: “I know what’s wrong with you” and Growing up “Unique”
In 8th grade, I joined a club at my school called “The Nature Academy.” We would go on all kinds of adventures. We would hike, take boat rides, go kayaking, and even a camping trip. I would have to be careful for a week or more before our trips to ensure I’d be able to have fun like the rest of the kids, but sometimes it wouldn’t matter and I would just suffer through the pain. I wanted to do what the other kids could do and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me, even if that meant I would be in pain later.
When I got to high school, I was determined to be “normal”. Or as “Normal” has someone with an undiagnosed condition could be. My blisters were still a problem, but I knew that if I was careful and kept my walking down to a minimum it wouldn’t be too bad. Of course, I had to walk or take the public bus home, so walking was part of the day regardless. Somehow, I managed.
I played Tennis my Freshman year in high school. I loved it. I wasn’t very good and I couldn’t run as well as the other girls, but I tried. My coach was amazing. He didn’t know what was wrong with me, but if I told him I was having issues, he would let me sit out for a while or whatever I needed. He was also very protective of us girls because we were next to the football gym and the guys were kind of mean to us, but that’s a whole other story.
When school started for my Sophomore year, we had a new coach. She made us run and play and when I couldn’t run like the other girls she cut me from the team. Did you know they could do that in high school? She could have just benched me, I just wanted to play, but they made me change my schedule and everything. In the end, it was probably for the best so I didn’t mess my feet up more then necessary.
For dances, I had to carefully plan everything for weeks ahead of time, to make sure I didn’t cause whatever it was to flare up so I could wear cute shoes or dance. Sometimes I was successful, other times not so much. I’d always go though because I wanted everyone to think I was normal. My closes friends knew about my problem. They didn’t judge me for it thankfully. They understood when I couldn’t walk, or dance, or if I just wanted to sit and relax. They would sit with me.
Years later, my dad had an alumni book from my high school and I was flipping through it and I found a picture of myself at a dance. I laughed and laughed.. I wasn’t wearing shoes. How they managed to find the probably one time I didn’t wear shoes was truly amazing.
I was 17 when I met my husband. We started dating two years later and I thought, NO WAY was I going to tell him about my “problem”. I wanted to be normal. I didn’t want o him to think there was something wrong with me. Since I couldn’t even tell him what it was, I kept it to myself. We didn’t drive at the time and so, we walked. Everywhere. At night, I would pop my blisters and soak my feet and just deal with the pain. I got used to just dealing with the pain of walking on my blistered feet. This continued for probably about a month before I finally told him I just couldn’t walk anymore. I told him I had a problem with my feet and walking all the time was putting me in a lot of pain. He asked to see them, so I showed him my feet. He took my feet in his hands and said he didn’t care that I had a problem and that my feet were beautiful. We still walked sometimes, but only when I was feeling up to it.
Eventually, my now husband got a vehicle and we started driving places. It really made me miss being able to just walk around with him, but I knew I had to be careful so I didn’t get bad blisters because then I couldn’t walk around at all.
