I love to dance. But like formally, something I didn’t discover until my son was a baby, and I took a belly dancing class. It was my ‘thing’ – I could do it all day, every day! I was passionate. Unfortunately, as things sometimes are with babies, he wasn’t so good in the evenings without me, and I needed to be home with him and my days of dancing came to an abrupt halt. Oh well, I thought, one day, when he was older.

Life had some alternative plans though. Moving through time, in 2016, my left foot started to hurt. Annoying enough I went to the doctor. Now, as someone with Rheumatoid Arthritis, I’m used to pain in weird places and having had two spinal fusions (at that point in time) it takes a lot to get me to complain, more to get me to the doctor. It was nearly debilitating and was interfering with my walk to pick my son up from school. I didn’t like it, I was annoyed, and I wanted a remedy.

Examined, x-ray’d. Nothing found. Sent on my way. I shut up about it and carried on. When I saw my rheumatologist, I spoke to him. We tried cortisone shots. No relief. A year passed. Same pain, worse. Now my foot was numb. More cortisone. Family doctor is referring me back to my surgeon, it must be related to my back…

Summer 2018, both feet are now afflicted with this mysterious pain. One foot has a weird bump on the bottom. I complain. “It’s your back.” Surgery will help! So, I’m slated for another spinal fusion (and revision). This will fix it! I have an encapsulated series of nerves causing the pain. My back is sore, yes, I want relief. I trust my doctors. We wait. In January 2019, I get a date. February 25.

The surgery was terrible, but it was done. Let the foot pain end! Four weeks post op, no change. I kept waiting for relief, but it never came.

In July 2019, I went to my family doctor. I pulled off my socks and said “I’ve waited for things to get better, but they are not. I have these bumps on the bottom of both feet. It can’t be right. Can someone please do something?” The pain by this time was terrible. I had to wear shoes everywhere I went, anything that wasn’t more or less flat, I couldn’t walk in. My hips and back, even after the surgery, were in pain constantly. I could not walk more than half a block due to the pain, and it only seemed to be getting worse.

My doctor sent me for x-rays and said he’d be in touch, if there was anything amiss. At this time, I was staying with my mother two hours from home as my stepfather had passed away and we were packing her up in order to move her. I was driving and had gotten about an hour out of town when my phone rang. It was the doctor’s office. Something was wrong. He needed to see me immediately. Back the next day I came, unsure what to expect.

“We failed you. I failed you.” These were the first words out of his mouth. “There is something wrong, you’re right. The bones in your mid-foot are shifting out of place. What is left of them have fused and disintegrated.” It was in both feet, and they were both at the ‘end stage’. Within five years, it was likely I would not be able to walk. He’d arranged a consultation with a specialist, but, as there was not much left of the bones, he was not sure if there was much to be done. I had a glimmer of hope and in the meantime, I was to be fitted for leg braces in hopes of creating some kind of stability for my foot.

Several months later, I had the consultation, and as expected, there was nothing to be done. The condition, I learned, called Charcot Foot, was permanent, rare, unusual found outside of someone without diabetes, and largely, could have been prevented – if more care had been paid when I’d first complained back in 2016 (or one of the other times).

Life sometimes presents you with changes you aren’t ready for. I just wanted to take a dance class, but my baby was not ready to be apart from me. When I wanted to dance, my body wasn’t able to perform. It all seemed a little cruel.

Much love, chickens.