Bigger Than A Shoe Box
By: Little Fiction
Tags: Disability, Nonfiction, Memoir

Pain: the presence of bodily and/or mental suffering, and the anxiety of future suffering

“Simply put, Mrs. Palmer, your daughter needs an operation. Several, in fact.”

It is 1964. I am nine. In sugar-white gloves, my mother holds her own hands.

Dr. Salter, Surgeon-in-Chief of Sick Children’s Hospital, lifts his pen to my x-rays.

“A normal human foot contains twenty-six bones: seven tarsals or ankle bones, five meta-tarsal or foot bones, and fourteen phalanges or toes. Dorothy’s tiny toes have two bones each. Her left foot has three tarsals, two meta-tarsals, and two unique fused bones. Her right foot has three tarsals, three meta-tarsals and three fused bones. Instead of twenty-six bones, her left foot has seventeen and her right has nineteen. Both feet flop over, like a permanently twisted ankle.”

Mother sighs. “That’s what I was afraid of. She’s deformed. She has clubbed feet.”

Dr. Salter frowns at her, smiles at me.

“No, Dorothy, you don’t. Clubbed feet can’t place themselves flat on the ground. With effort, with considerable pain, yours can. One in every thousand babies has a degree of clubfoot. Your congenital abnormalities are more complex. Much rarer.”

I can’t see any of this. He is making it up.

“Here’s the skivvy, Princess. I don’t know how many years you’ll walk for. Maybe into your thirties, or forties. That’s up to your feet, not to you or to me.” He smiles. “But I think I can help you walk better for longer. It’s experimental. So, no guarantees. But it’s worth a try.”

I cup my left foot. Make a promise I can’t keep. “I won’t let them cut you.”

He explains a triple arthrodesis. An operation every two years. Removable metal pins and permanent metal staples. I have to close my eyes or barf. I tune back in and wish I hadn’t.

“Each recuperation requires six weeks on crutches, another six in a walking cast. A year of physio. Corrective shoes. I’ll begin with the left foot. Cut fused bones for range of motion. Implant stabilizers. File abutting bones to articulate more like the joints of a normal foot.”

Articulate? A crazy man wants to cut me open. A man who thinks feet can talk.

Mother takes his lunacy straight in her chair, poised, attentive, accepting.

“She didn’t walk when we got her at three. Children’s Aid called it Failure to Thrive, said she might be retarded. She falls so often, it’s embarrassing. After this, will she pass for normal?”

As my doctor stacks my x-rays, one falls from his hands. A bone grey dove fluttering down.

“Your daughter’s feet, Mrs. Palmer, have virtually no cartilage.”

I know that word from Health Class. “Like in the rim of our ears?”

“Yes, Princess. Connective tissue between joints, like gristle. A shock absorber. Cushions impact. You limp because without it, every movement registers as pain.”

“Is that why she’s always complaining that her feet hurt?”

“Mrs. Palmer, I repeat, your daughter is in pain. All the time. Sitting or standing. Worse when walking. Unbearable by nighttime. Imagine this.” He rams his knuckles together, grates them hard. “These are her bones. Without cartilage, they’re grinding themselves into splinters.”

Mother averts her gaze, smoothes her gloves. He tugs on my braid. Winks at me.

“So you fall down. So what? The longer I’m in this business the more impressed I am by kids like you. I’m proud of you, Princess. I don’t know how you walk at all.”

All the pieces of my life fly together. I’m not a lazy, lying, complaining, clumsy excuse for girl. It hurts. He said so. The sanest man on earth. He can cut me anywhere he wants.

Mother makes the sound reserved for my brother when he picks his nose.

“Excuse me, I’m wondering about high heels?”