After reliving the foot incident I was reminded of another medical mishap.

When I was around 14 years old I was diagnosed with scoliosis and was told I would need to wear a back brace. Well really I was first told that I would need surgery and would never have children, which to a 14 year old was pretty traumatic, but after dealing with my Mom I guess the Dr’s settled for just the brace and a better approach to talking to children.

So here’s the run down; I get diagnosed, I get a Boston Brace and wear it for 6 months. My mom does a lot of research and finds this holistic approach to scoliosis with the COPES brace.

COPES is based out of Baton Rouge, LA. We get a few cool family vacations as we were supposed to travel there every 6 months for a check up, which should have been a clue as to how crazy this program was. By holistic, they meant holistically ruin your entire life. They took a hair sample, blood sample, spit sample, did a muscle test, x-rays, etc, etc. I thought I might end up like Marie Curie after the first visit.

Their program looked something like this:

I was supposed to wear the brace 23 out of 24 hours a day.

I was on a diet in which I could only eat fruit, vegetables and meat. No cheese, bread, dairy, or processed foods basically.

I did an 18 minute stretching routine.

I did an 18 minute muscle stimulation routine.

I did an 18 minute neck traction routine.

I did an 18 minute lay-on-torture-board-thing.

(are you adding this? Even if I only did 3 of these things, I was out of the brace for 54 minutes.)

And I saw a chiropractor 3 times a week.

All of that sucked, but not near as much as the brace itself. It went from my hips to my collar bone. It was awkward to fit under clothes (which I could only really wear sweat pants and t-shirts), and was noticeable on my small frame. I still have nightmares where I drop my pencil in a classroom and can’t bend to pick it up. Or dreams where I have to take it off because the pain is so unbearable, only to realize I don’t have a bra on (because I couldn’t wear one under the plastic) and my undershirt is drenched in sweat.

I wore this brace for about 4 years.

It sucked, but I’m totally fine now, and like the foot incident, really don’t remember that much of it unless I consciously start thinking about it.

But this is the best part! COPES was run by a man who pretended to be a doctor! All those tests, the requirements, that terrible brace, was thought up by someone, who never went to medical school. He was also convicted of insurance fraud.

I never ever look up scoliosis stuff. The pictures on the internet are, of course, of the worst cases known to man. I don’t need images of twisted circus freaks in my mind. Because of this, I didn’t find out about my fraud doctor until I had a friend get diagnosed with scoliosis and was telling her about the COPES program. Google let me know my doctor was a quack.

Recently I was getting fitted for orthotic inserts in my running shoes when the doctor asked me how my bunion surgery was. I inherited many wonderful things through genetics… but bunions was not one of them. I have fairly long scars down the tops of my feet, so even without me telling him, he knew. I very quickly answered, “fine” without even thinking about it. I have relatively little pain in my feet and hardly ever think about the 2 surgeries I had when I was 18. The scars don’t even bother me, in fact I’d gladly take them over having the actual bunions which I think looked way worse.

But in reality I almost lost my foot. That surgery wasn’t “fine”. My right foot was casted too tight causing my swollen foot to start dying off. I didn’t know, since I’d never broken a bone before, what a cast should feel like. But apparently it shouldn’t be an 11 on the pain scale. The skin turned black and started dying, and then the nerves died too. I had compartment syndrome.

Specifically thinking about that surgery, it was almost terrible. We were furious with the doctors; she didn’t properly do her job and it almost cost me my right foot. I limped around for 6 weeks on crutches terrified if I came down too hard on my broken and uncasted foot I’d have to have a reconstructive surgery for that bone. 8 week later I had surgery for the left foot, and because I’m sure the doctor was worried I might sue her ass, I didn’t receive a cast for that one.

But that pain and near disaster isn’t even what I remember as the worst part of that surgery.

The worst part happened after the compartment syndrome and two surgeries were completed. I wanted the screws that held the once broken bone together taken out of my right foot, as I thought I could feel them when I rubbed the skin over the incision. It was the most sensitive area of my foot, making it so I never wanted a pedicure, or to wear shoes with a hard top that might touch it.

The doctor agreed to take the screws out, even though she seemed to think it was pointless. Instead of going under for this surgery, which was minor, they put a block in and a curtain up so I couldn’t see my foot while she cut on it. Unfortunately I could still hear everything the doctor was saying.

“Why is there so much blood!”*

At this comment, I started crying. I was going to bleed out. I was going to die. I could feel the pressure of the knife cutting what felt like 8 inches up my foot.**

She pressed down,”Is this where you feel the screws?”

Through sobs, “Yes.”

“Well they aren’t there” and she starts scraping the knife along the bone to signify to me that there is nothing there. Just knife, running along smooth bone. The sound of the knife sharpening along my exposed bone was too much.

I. Was. Freaking. Out.

Trying to distract myself, I glance up at the TV in the corner of the office. It’s a cooking show, and they’re demonstrating how to cut up a chicken. The fleshy limp chicken gets cut in half by the hosts huge knife. “That’s my foot,” I think. Being cut open by this evil cooking show watching doctor. Who watching a Emeril Lagasse while cutting into another humans skin??

The screws were removed, about an inch higher than I thought I felt them. I left the office with a tear stained face and probably scared all the other patients in the waiting room. My foot is still sensitive where my phantom screws are, which is probably a result of the nerve damage.

*Notes: She made this comment because the torniquet came loose and blood started coming out of the new incision on my foot. My dad, who sat with me during this incident, told me later it was, “like 2 drops”. But I still maintain I could have bled out.

**Note 2: The scar might be about an inch and a half long, but if felt like at least eight inches of cutting.

See: Why We Need Cell Phones: Also Related to Divorce Rate: Squirrel Skinning Kit.

I realized while Joey and I were witnesses to the near divorce due to a bag cell phone, this is not the moment my parents remember as near divorce. Theirs is related to recovering a chair, which we like to call “The Squirrel Skinning Incident”.

Here’s the background: One day, some time ago, my grandpa shot a squirrel and asked my grandma to help him skin it so they could cook it up and eat it. Now squirrels, I hear, are tricky to skin. It involves something like nailing the tail to a tree so you can pull down on both sides of its body. The pulling needs to be very exact, or you’ll rip the skin and cause terrible squirrel skinning issues. My grandma starts telling him, “You’re pulling too fast”, he replies “You’re not pulling hard enough”. Back and forth until I’m sure the squirrel was never eaten, and it was a divorce or death situation. This squirrel will live in infamy in my family as the moment my grandparents almost killed each other, but didn’t, and realized their marriage could survive anything.

My parents experienced their squirrel moment while trying to recover a chair. Incredibly similar to a squirrel, recovering a chair means pulling the fabric to exactly the same tension before stapling it down. The story goes they both had hammers, but survived the incident.

Whether it’s a family curse or destiny of man-kind, I have been waiting for my squirrel moment ever since learning of its powers. Once J and I tried to assemble Ikea furniture together, but it just didn’t feel quite squirrel worthy.

We Need Cellphones: To Decrease the Divorce Rate.

I can attest to this, as I’m pretty sure my parents were the closest I ever saw to divorce due to the lack of a cell phone. Actually I think we had a cell phone at this time, but it was in a bag in the car.

Anyway my family likes to hike. Mountains, streams, grassy knolls, we’ve trekked along them all. During family vacations we like to travel somewhere that is known for it’s beautiful hiking. The bad part about hiking is the lack of flushing toilets, and I supposed what’s worse is toting along small children. So before we took off on a long hike my mom took my brother and I to the bathroom, telling my dad to go grab the camera out of the car. Somewhere in the transit of that message, something was lost, like where we were going to meet up afterwards. We made a pit stop at the gift shop and headed down to meet at the trail head. Waiting and waiting, we realize dad must be at the gift shop. So we head back that way. Of course there is more than one path to the gift shop…

I don’t remember how long we walked in circles until we found each other. All I remember is once we did all meet up, Joey and I were deciding who we’d pick to live with when they got their divorce.

Cell phones people. It’s the greatest invention of all time.

That or a squirrel skinning kit, but it’s a toss up, since they both relate to divorce rate.

Happy Birthday to the best red Power Ranger Ever!