Battle of the Brace

“I hate this brace.” 

“What do you mean you hate it?”

“I just hate it. I hate wearing it. I just want to be normal—Like the other kids.” 
And my heart breaks. 

“Wait, buddy, did someone say something? To you? About the brace?”

“No. I just hate it. I hate that I walk different.”

I have him come over to me and I pull him into my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head...

“OK. I know. But you know we are all made different, right? So you are made different than me. I’m different than JoJo. She is different from her friends. So, really, it’s normal to be different. And having a brace is just your normal.” 
I pull him in closer. “You’ll be OK, lover.”

“OK. But I still hate it.”

He walks away. 

And I get it. I hate it, too. But it’s not the brace I hate. I hate that he feels like his “different” isn’t “normal”. We all feel that way about something about ourselves at some point, don’t we? (Or maybe at many points). But for him, I know it will be an uphill battle. 

I hate it. 

I hate that because he can’t run as fast as the other kids or because he doesn’t walk the same way, he feels like he belongs in a separate category. Normal vs not normal. I hate that people will judge him and make assumptions about him. 

I hate it because I look at him and I just see my little boy. Different, yes. But he’s mine. 

And, besides...we don’t really mind different over here. 

Actually, we love it. 

**It’s been almost a year since Curtis’s cast came off after surgery and he is still in his AFO almost 100% of the time. He is soon to be 10 years old (yikes) and we anticipate that after this brace, which provides a lot of stabilization for his ankle, he will transition into a carbon fiber AFO for his drop foot. So...we will need to "embrace the brace" for a while longer.

New Gear

I have a lot on my mind, folks, and we are already heading into the second week of May! But I want to first share Curtis' new leg brace since I have discussed it in previous posts but have never shown it. 

I'll start by explaining what it is. It's called an AFO, which stands for ankle-foot orthosis. The main job of Curtis' AFO is to prevent foot drop, which was causing him to trip and fall on his face (especially when he was tired). Curtis only wears the AFO on his left leg/foot.

The process of getting his leg casted was easy-peasy. I only took a few photos because it went by so fast! They wrapped his leg up in a cast using fiberglass tape (just like you would if you broke a bone), set his foot in the position they wanted, let it set for a few minutes, and cut it off. Done! He sat watching the orthotist's iPad the whole time and wasn't bothered at all.

Wrapping the leg with fiberglass tape

Cool as a cucumber

Cutting the cast off

A few weeks later it was ready. It was a lot bigger than I expected and the whole process of getting it on is a struggle, I won't lie. But so far it's doing its job and Curtis isn't complaining about it too much so I call it a success. 

The kids at school asked about it the first day he wore it and he just said, "It's my brace." (Like...duh!) They didn't ask any other questions. Kids are awesome like that.