A New Walk

Everyone has a distinctive walking gait. Some people hold themselves erect and stately.  While others walk sloop shouldered and saunter down the road without a care in the world.  Since, I have Cerebral Palsy, I have valiantly tried to walk without a limp most of my life.  I hid my spastic hand by holding items in my to make it appear useful.

My right leg was more of a problem to hide. No matter how much my parents tried to remind me to, “take a longer step,” or “stand on your right foot,” it just reminded me of how fruitless these request were. I started out walking  as they requested and invariably ended up limping my way down the street.  The only time I would notice I was limping, I could see the shadow of my own head bobbing from side to side as I walked down the street.  Many times I would get queer looks from people as I passed and wondered what they were thinking ……..“why do you limp?,” or “Oh, you poor thing!!!” That is human nature to judge others without knowing the real reason. 

The college I went to was about a mile down the road from where I lived. I had just started my second year. One day, while I was walking home I decided to count how many steps I could walk without dragging and tripping over my right foot.  I  could not walk more than one full gait before I tripped  over my right foot I counted at least thirty times or more of dragging that foot through the gait and tripping.

I was so angry at myself because I had no control over this problem as I had with my hand. I could hide the hand easier.“Will this every end?” I thought.  I had to tell myself to get a grip on your own feeling a figure out what to do.  Finally, I came to a conclusion.  I needed to talk with Papa.

That night after dinner I stayed at the dinner table and waited until everyone had left. I knew I would be emotional about this, so I rehearsed it to myself before I proposed this idea to Papa.  I said, “ I am concerned about how I walk. I don’t like the feeling of tripping over my right foot and almost falling flat on my face.  I have done that several times in my lifetime.  I would like to see if we could go back to Dr. Hoover, who was the only doctor that had faith enough I me that I would be able to walk normally.  If not, Dr. Hoover then, another orthopedist.”

Papa listened to every word and then became very thoughtful.  The silence was deafening and I was getting nervous.  Then Papa broke the silence by saying, “ I’m proud that you came to the realization you needed more help then what we could for your right foot.  Let’s look into it starting tomorrow.”

Within the next couple of days, I found that Dr. Hoover had retired and I needed to find another Orthopedist. I looked up an acquaintance from high school who had the same problem as I did.  She had gone to Dr. Carpenter.

I set up an appointment with him to be evaluated. He asked me to walk the length of the hall. After he evaluated my gait, he sat me down on the exam table he said “ I see that you are walking on the toes of you right foot. How would you like to walk on the entire foot?

I replied, “ That would be great!”  It’s a dream come true.” Wow! This might really happen.”  I asked him what this entailed. He said, “I’m going to lengthen you Achilles  tendon by cutting it in a diagonal in several places and attaching the longer portions of the tendon to lengthen it.  I asked him to explain it to me again so, I would be able to repeat the procedure to my parents. It felt like this was a dream come true.

That very Christmas, I received my new walk. Instead of walking on my toes for twenty years, I was able to walk a flat gait. One of the most exhilarating feeling for me was after my cast was taken off, I went to mass on a very cold Sunday morning with my family. As I step out onto the sidewalk, I could feel the hard cold concrete penetrating through my shoe. What a wonder feeling it was to learn to walk like others people. I now can walk on the entire foot which I have have missed all me life. That was the best Christmas gift ever.