So let’s start at age 7.

When I was born I had PFFD – Proximal femoral focal deficiency – it was quite rare in 1995 and not a lot of doctors or midwifes had seen it, my mum was told about the shortness of the leg( femur ) in the scans but it didn’t bother her at all and didn’t think much of it. Around 1.5 years of age I had to wear these boots/shoes one was normal and the other had a wedge so that I could walk straight and not on tiptoe. I had to wear them till I was about 6 years old and then the doctors offered me operations to try and lengthen the femur with frames, stretching the bone and so forth. It wasn’t that simple. Unfortunately. Where the doctor/surgeon I had at first had no idea and claimed he knew what he was doing, he managed to weaken my femur causing it to snap when I bared any weight on it. So I was put into a hip spiker (which is a plaster that covers you from ankle to over your belly button). For a 7 year old this isn’t much fun, missed out on school, friends, activities . But in the end we managed to get a new surgeon who fixed the femur and stopped it bowing/breaking. I had over 40 opartions over the course of 8 years. My leg broke over 4 times. My hip came out of socket. My knee locked up because of all the plasters I was put in and bed rest. So had to have my knee cap removed and cut. Also have my other leg cut to stop it growing so my left leg could try and catch up, infections, loss of blood. Safe to say I have been through a lot and missed out on a lot in my childhood. It never put me down or made me depressed. I enjoyed school as much as I could. I have the best of friends who took care of me carried my bags and lunch if needed as I was in wheelchairs or crutches a lot of the time. In between opartions they would give me 6-7 months to be normal child and then I’d be straight back in again for another one. That hospital was my second home. (Southampton general) highly recommend as it was brill and I met so many lovely nurses and people. Wouldn’t change it for the world as that’s what has made me who I am today. A strong independent woman. Also where I got my sense of humour from never once did I play on my disability because it doesn’t matter if your different or gone through so much pain and lost time. I made a incredible bond with my mum as she stuck by me 24/7 and my dad and family was just amazing. They would take it in turns to stay over at the hospital. Make home easy for me to get around. Just perfect. I’ll never forget any of it. Specially when the hospital had Burger King downstairs thank the lord as the hospital food was awful. Anyways just a bit of insite of my childhood.