In which I discover I have ‘funny legs’

Thanks NACG for the introduction in News. I am honoured to be writing for this Blog and I hope you enjoy sharing my journey. I am now a week post surgery; I will take you from the moment I learned I had ‘funny legs’ to the present day updates and I will include photos as I go along. I hope you enjoy …

It was 1995 when I was first alerted to my “funny legs”. At 14 years old I was in my Religious Education class and I was standing by my desk waiting for the bell to ring. I heard the group of boys giggle and saw them looking over at me and pointing. One boy was shaking his head annoyed with his friends and he then came over to me. “Ignore them – they are saying you have bandy legs but I told them it is because you go horse-riding…” The boy was being kind. I had been horse-riding lessons when I was about 6 but like most things I had grown bored of it and chucked it – if my legs were funny it was not the horse-riding to blame. Nevertheless I took his excuse “Yeah of course I go horse-riding” He looked relieved “Yeah that’s what I thought, it’s normal for your legs to be funny shaped if you do.”

And this day signalled the start of a very obsessed 17 years of hiding my legs.

I had resigned myself to living with my bandy legs. In Scotland this was not too much of a problem. There is not a huge demand for shorts and bikinis after all. The few months of the year where I wanted to wear these things I simply didn’t. I wore trousers…baggy trousers and baggy jeans. I also discovered I could wear skirts and dresses if they fell below the knee. Although my legs were not straight below the knee, it was only obvious if you could see my knees. This all depended on fashion though and sometimes fashions were kind other times not so much. Skinny jeans were evil! My legs also looked fine above the knee so when ‘over-the-knee’ boots came into fashion I was suddenly able to wear short skirts and dresses and I thought this was fab; although looking back it was all a bit Pretty Woman.

The worst time was always on holiday. I had mastered the art of going to the edge of the pool with a towel/sarong on and sliding out of it and into the pool in a swift fluid motion that would not allow anyone to see my legs. My obsession was vain and egotistical. Most people by the pool were not even looking but I assumed everyone was waiting to point and laugh.

At 14 years old it didn’t even occur to me to seek medical advice. I didn’t even tell my family outright about the boys teasing me, they gradually just got used to my ‘issues’ with my legs. As the years went by and the internet became a hub of knowledge I started to check out things in private. I was searching for exercises that would alter the alignment and I came across various suggestions but nothing that could change the shape of bone.

And then in August 2011 I was conducting another random search, taking comfort from the fact that others have also been cursed with this when I stumbled across a blog that changed my life! NACG was writing about me!! So many times whilst reading her blog I thought “I could have written that”. I was envious that NACG had been able to have surgery and thought that with the different Healthcare system in the US it would be something I could only get if I was part of that system or could afford to pay privately here.

I posted a comment to NACG asking about the procedure being done in other countries and she sent me this email address Dennis.OKeefe@arthrex.com . I got a reply with information about a surgeon in Glasgow which is about an hour from where I live in Scotland. The next day I made an appointment with my GP. This was the hardest part. At this point I was 30 years old. I had kept my legs hidden from the world for the past 16 years and I was going to have to stand in front of a stranger and ask for help.