LIFE WITH A CHARCOT FOOT 

Living With Charcot 

Hi, my name is Bob and I developed Charcot Arthropathy some time last year. I don't know when it happened because of my diabetes. I have pain and suffering in my feet yet I could not feel it when I broke my left foot and walked on it for a few weeks or even a few months according to my doctors.

A lot has happened in these few months and I have learned a lot. What ever I have learned and the knowledge gained doesn't hold a candle to what I feel in my heart. I have tried to keep a strong PMA (positive mental attitude). I have been hurt many times in my life and have been laid up on occasion but nothing as crippling and debilitating as this. The point I am striving to get at is this: yes it has gotten me down on occasion and every time I felt it was starting to whip me I over came it.

I had promised myself, from the very beginning, I wouldn't let it whip me but the other night (a lot of limited sleep nights) I lay there thinking about being handicapped. I started to better understand the attitude of people the world calls handicapped. I am fighting with everything right now including the disability people. I decided I wouldn't let them drag me down to their conception of what it means to be handicapped. I won't play their game. In my mind I am not handicapped. Yes, I am physically challenged. I am limited in what and when I can do things. My body is not in good shape but I rejoice in what I have left and take pleasure in the blessings I do have. The ordeal Social Security puts you through is demeaning and you start to feel you must play their game and you start thinking wrong. I'm going into this fight with my head held high. Yes, they owe me disability. I've paid into this insurance program for a long time. However, I will not go into court or any where else acting crippled of body, mind or soul. I will not crawl into court trying to look like a whipped dog. If I do this then they have whipped me. I hold those abilities I have left very dear to my heart. If I want to have some color to my face from sitting on the front porch I will do it. I can look healthy and strong of spirit and mind and still prove my case of being limited in my functionality.

I am not afraid to lose because I am a winner. Nobody wins everything. Even the collegiate wrestler from Iowa who is undefeated in his college career and is a 4 time National champion can be undefeated in everything. No body can be perfect in everything. My hero in life is not that great hero that is to afraid to be afraid. My hero's are those every day people who keep plugging away to better themselves and their families. Those that get up everyday and keep on keeping on to meet the every day challenges placed before them are my hero's, especially when they do it with the right attitude. Dan Gable my favorite wrestler was defeated for the National Championship his senior year. This made him stronger. He worked so hard that when he went to the Olympics he became an Olympic Champion and if I remember right he was never taken off his feet. Look at some of the greatest athletics America has ever had. Some were told they were handicapped and would never walk and yet ran in the Olympics and won. Scotty Hamilton is one of my hero's and I have a great fondness for him.

What I am trying to say is we are all winners. If you don't believe me change the way you think about yourself.

The other day I ran into another road block. I got my own wheel chair and the next day my wife and I decided to go to the movies. Guess what, my wheel chair with a 20" seat would not fit through the bath room door. Angry, yes! Upset with the guy that sold it to me, Yes! The width of the chair was something we had specifically talked about because my loaner chair would not fit through the bed room or bath room door. He is new at his job so it does me no good to be angry and hateful towards him. It boils down to: I have another decision to make on what to do about the situation I am in, make that decision and live with it. In the mean time I have made a decision to not make a decision until I am ready and a little more knowledgeable. I am living with my first decision and that was not to let everything upset me and get me down and control me.

Thanks dad for all the advise over the years, you see I was listening even when you thought I wasn't. I owe you and Mom far more than you two can ever realize.

bob 27 April 2002