WHY I HAVE A LITTLE LIMP AND WHY I'M OKAY WITH IT

Okay, so this is a bit of a different post to my usual posts about books and how I like to read, but I think it could be quite interesting. If you know me in person, then you know I have a very slight limp. I've had problems with my right leg for a few years now and I most certainly complain about it from time to time. It's most certainly a lot better now than it used to be and I dance on it pretty much every week without that many issues. I still have issues with sitting cross-legged for too long or try and kneel up. There is definitely no running for me either (not that I'm complaining, I hate running). I thought that this blog post would be nice for me to explain the story/journey of what happened and how I got to where I am today.

When I was around 8, we got one of those round trampolines that you put up in your garden. It was the type with the net around it and where you were only supposed to have like two people on it at one time so it didn't break. If I remember correctly, it was a present for my sister (I just asked her and she also thinks it was hers so that's what we're going with) but was obviously for both of us to use. I loved it, doing all sorts of different jumps (I say all sorts, I literally mean like straddle and pike, not that much to it) and I never attempted any kind of flips because I am not that co-ordinated in the slightest. I would've definitely broken something, probably my neck. We had a next door neighbour with two kids, both of them younger than us, but the older of the two was about 5/6 and he'd always come round and play with us. This one day, the three of us were playing on the trampoline, holding a fake competition to see who could to the best jump. They both went and then it was my turn. I jumped up and as my foot left the floor of the trampoline, there was this massive crunching/popping sound coming from my right knee and I fell back down with a thud. All I remember is that I let out a scream and started crying. When I was a little kid I had a really high pain tolerance, so much so that my nickname was 'tough cookie' by both of my parents. That's how we knew something was really wrong. I think someone carried me into the living room so we could really assess the situation. I couldn't move my leg or stand on it without being in sheer agony and crying so that was a trip to A&E for me. Yay...

Flash forward about twenty minutes and we were in the waiting room at the hospital and I was still in a lot of pain, hugging my mum and crying, as a lot of kids in sheer pain tend to do. They took me into one of the rooms and I remember a nurse trying to bend my leg and straightening it and I just sobbed because it hurt so bad and the nurse was like "yeah that's definitely not good", which filled me with so much confidence because I was already in a lot of pain. Anyway, I think I had to go back into the waiting room before the doctor called me back into a room. My dad carried me and put me on the bed and the doctor talked to my parents for a little bit before coming over to me. He did the same thing as the nurse, trying to move it to assess what was going on. He turned to my mum and dad and was like "She's dislocated the cartilage disc in her knee". We were all obviously shocked but relieved I hadn't ripped a ligament or anything. I'm going to be completely honest, I don't even remember him doing it but there was a little click and, like that, my pain had gone. He asked me to walk and I was hesitant, however, I could walk up and down the little treatment room without a problem. After that, I was on my way home with no problems and I didn't think anything of it for years, other than it being an interesting story to tell.

At the start of every year at my school we would do a cross-country run around the local park that was next to my school. I kid you not, there were not many people who actually liked this, and like I said before, I hate running. The next part of the story happens in year 9, so I was 13. I'd done this twice before so I knew the drill. I started running and everything was fine, aside from me dying from being out of breath and being unfit, that was until I got to a hill. There were multiple inclines on the course we were running. I don't remember exactly where on the course it happened. I think when I was running down a hill I landed on my foot a bit too forcefully and twisted my knee and then kept running. The pain wasn't that bad until I reached the final stretch coming up this hill. I reached the top and stopped running, kinda dying because my fitness really is questionable. I was bending and straightening my leg, hobbling around a little because it was hurting. It wasn't enough for me to say I was in agony, but it was that stage of pain that is just uncomfortable. I told one of my friends, who then told my PE teacher. She told me that I should've told her in case it was something serious but I shrugged it off and just hobbled back to school, recovering in about an hour or two once I was with my friends. I assumed I'd just strained a muscle or something and that it was no big deal, however, I was starting to notice the same pain whenever I ran and it started to get worse towards the end of year 9, so I had to sit out sometimes because it was just painful and not the best.

I don't think we got it checked out for a while because we assumed it was just a strained muscle and it'd heal if I rested it and didn't put too much pressure on it during sports. The summer between year 9 and 10 was when it got really bad. I started waking up in the middle of the night, with either my knee locking or just being really uncomfortable and in pain. I was eating in a Lebanese restaurant with my family and I was really struggling to get comfortable. After all of this, my parents decided to take me to the hospital to see what was wrong. I remember it was the night of Ariana Grande's One Love concert because I was watching it on the little tv in the waiting room. That trip to the hospital was not the most productive. They basically took a look over me and told me it was just growing pains. I don't usually question healthcare professionals, however, this didn't feel like growing pains. I don't really grow so that limited this even more. I took what the doctor said and treated it as growing pains, just waiting for it to go away, we all know where the story is going now.

I was honestly starting to give up with finding a way to fix whatever was going on. I ended up going to my GPs and told them that it had been probably about a year at this point that I'd been getting about 5 hours of sleep a night and how it was affecting me in daily life. I'd had to use crutches at some point as well because I couldn't even put enough pressure on it to walk. The doctor referred me to an orthopaedic surgeon to see if they could really find out what this undiagnosed problem was.

I am pretty scared of doctors so I was terrified sitting in the waiting room. I was probably the oldest kid in there but it didn't stop me from being scared of what was about to happen. It really wasn't a big deal once I was in there. He asked me questions, (said I was 12 when I was 14 so I wasn't that impressed by my baby face), did some stretching things with my knee and referred me to physio.

Great, so it would be sorted, right? Nope.

Six weeks went by and I didn't get my referral to physio and I was still in a lot of pain so we called the surgeon's secretary and they said that I'd been to physio and the surgeon had discharged me. That hadn't happened so it was back to the GPs for me. This time I was told I'd need a blood test in case it was rheumatoid arthritis. I left and cried because I'm terrified of needles and I don't need to tell the story of the blood test. Anyway, it wasn't that so I had to go to the surgeon again, but it was a different surgeon this time.

This surgeon did the same as the first but he wanted more tests, like an MRI scan on my right leg. I told them about the dislocation but he said that he doubted that there was any connection between the two and it happened to be mere coincidence that it was the same leg.

So, I had the tests that he wanted and went back a few weeks later, that's where I found out actually what was going on. The actual joint of your knee is meant to be smoothly curved, but mine is jagged and so the wrong shape for my leg. This means that it rubs against the joint when I walk and that causes the pain when I walk. My hips also face the wrong way ever so slightly, so I end up standing at an awkward angle, putting more pressure on my knee. This also means that my right leg is ever so slightly shorter than my left and you can see it when I sit on the floor with straight legs. There were a couple of other issues which aren't as important and can be easily fixed, like my feet being flat so I have special insoles to fix that and there are no problems with it anymore.

The surgeon told me that I qualified for surgery to smooth my knee down and potentially stop the pain but I'd be on crutches for like three months and wouldn't be able to dance for at least a year (I was doing musical theatre at the time so I kinda needed to be able to dance). He told me that he didn't recommend it and I was glad to reject because the thought of it terrified me and so I would have to resort to other treatments to ease the pain.

I actually went to physio this time and I was given stretches to do to loosen my hamstrings and relieve some of the pressure on my knee. This still didn't stop the pain and I know my friends were probably sick of me complaining about it but each day I was in so much pain and I tended to complain when it was more tolerable. In the times of the worst pain, I didn't say anything.

I admit I didn't do the stretches as much as I should've and that's probably why I still get pain now. It definitely started to ease a bit and I was able to sit out in PE more often to stop putting too much pressure on it. I did, however, before the diagnosis have to do a 12 minute run after saying that I probably shouldn't. It was basically 12 minutes of straight running up and down the gym; I got 4 minutes in and had to stop because I was almost crying and struggling to walk or stand. Definitely signs that the struggle was far from over.

I'd be lying if I said the whole thing hadn't impacted me at all. I think a lot of it was down to the lack of sleep, but I felt bad that I was going to hold my friends back when we went out. I couldn't do a lot of physical things that that wanted to do and I thought they would get fed up. I failed to mention, however, I have the best group of friends imaginable and it wasn't like that at all. Sure, sometimes they wanted to go ice skating and had to change plans if they knew I was going so I wasn't left out. They never once said anything about it and they treated me like me and I'll love them forever because of that. We found things that we could do that we all wanted to do and as I started to be able to do more with my knee, we were able to do more together.

Year 11 is probably when I really accepted it all and realised that no one sees me different because of it. Yes, I get nicknames about it but they're all in good fun and they really don't bother me because I'll use them for myself as well, making a joke about how I'm a bit slow sometimes. My friendship group was relatively small at that point so it was easier for me to not be worried about what people thought. The pain was significantly less and I even managed to go to Rome for three days with school and I didn't have to sit out once. I really enjoyed myself without thinking about my knee. After I got home I was in pain for a good few days but I recovered pretty quickly and there was no major problems with it.

Summer of year 11, I think I started to venture out more, not really being scared of the pain. I knew my physical limits, and I knew not to be dumb and push them too much. I went to London for a day and did quite a bit of walking and I even started ballroom and Latin dance. Dance was probably the biggest challenge because of the nature of it. There are still certain styles that I can't do because of the way they rely on your knees and hips, mainly Samba. Samba really hurts my knee after a little bit so I have to be extra careful when doing it during lessons. There's just an ongoing joke in dance that I'm too young to have knee problems, and that I'm short.

My friendship group really expanded this school year (year 12), and I was scared that I'd have to explain why I limped a little bit but none of them cared and all just treated me like a person. They have been the most patient and accepting people I could've ever met because it doesn't faze them in the slightest. It's just another part of me. I think they judge me more for my A-level choices than the way in which I walk. I don't blame them.

I made it a habit to tell people when I first meet them that I have a small limp to avoid being questioned about it or having people worry unnecessarily. I tend to keep quiet but if I really need to sit down, then I will tell you. It typically doesn't affect me until I get home and sit down, so I'm not preoccupied by whatever I'm doing. I have been told that it's not really that noticeable anymore, unless it's hurting and then I tend to put less weight on it (but that makes sense for anyone - you wouldn't stand on something that is causing you pain).

It's been a few years since everything kicked off with it, but I couldn't be happier and I'm not going to let it stop me from doing what I want to do anymore.

Anyway, that's all from me and I hope you enjoyed reading this relatively long story of what happened to my leg and how I learned to just accept it and appreciate what I have.

See ya,

Chloe xx