Part 2. These boots are made for walking

Sorry about the long and humourless first blog!  For those of you who know me, you’ll know humour is at the centre of my being.  And because I’m a girl, so are boots and shoes, though not necessarily in the way you think!

From almost the beginning of my treatment by Wexford/Waterford hospitals I had to wear what people might call “moon boots”.  These are usually given to people with broken bones and in the beginning I had just one, which enabled me to continue to wear one at least of my own shoes.  My own footwear is most often red in colour and not particularly “ladylike”.  My favourites of last year though were a pair of bright blue racing driver suede boots which I bought from John Wolsey at Ballymena Raceway in Northern Ireland – unfortunately at the time he had no red in stock!

With the aid of the initial boot and crutches I still got around everywhere, walks with Neil and Frank the Dog, even on our beach.  The beach was a weird experience with crutches – not to mention slow…

Life went on fairly as normal with just my left foot and leg affected until around the end of April when it became extremely weak, and my right foot followed the left in weakening and developing “foot drop” too.  After the week in Waterford hospital in May I was “awarded” my second “moon boot”.  The initial singular boot (worn in cold months of the year) had been open-toed; the new pair were big, heavy and enclosed – perfect for wearing through one of the hottest summers in a few years!   And they only came in black, though I did seriously consider spraying them red.

So, two boots, and crutches, nothing held me back as I could now power-walk around the local supermarket and Ballymena Raceway once again for the final round of their 2013 National Hot Rod series in June.  Even then I was still wistfully looking in my wardrobe at the shoes and boots I still fully expected to wear again “when I got better”. 

In July we made our annual trip to Ipswich in England for the National Hot Rod Championship of the World, and stopped off on the A12 for tea in Chelmsford.  Right by the tea shop was a second-hand wheelchair place and I thought “Bingo!”  One of those’ll be even faster, and I can behave like Miss Daisy!  So £90 lighter, we headed for Ipswich Raceway and Neil and myself did a lap of the track in the wheelchair.  Well, Neil was pushing…  I’m not sure we’d have qualified for any major competition in 2013, but with all the practice that we’ve had since then, beware world champion John Christie:  we’re coming to get you in 2014!

Around the beginning of October I was told by my new neurological consultant not to wear the moon boots any more as they’re not recommended for motor neuron patients.  I asked what I could use instead to get around and to date I’ve not had an answer, just the comments of the Dublin clinic’s physio that “You’ve made a Trojan effort to walk, but anyone in your position should have been in a wheelchair months ago.”  Needless to say, these words were ignored, and on reflection, what an awful thing to say to someone who is doing their best to remain mobile in the face of MND.  I was determined not to sit in my wheelchair at that stage and succumb to this cruel disease.  How unhelpful were those comments?

Obviously I continued to wear the boots even though I had now been assigned an HSE wheelchair.  I used the boots and crutches around the house all the time, which proved quite slippy on wet days as no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get Frank to wipe his paws.  Small pools of dog prints had to be avoided at all costs; the occasions I didn’t manage this resulted in spectacular acrobatics…

By Christmas both my legs, and my lower back, were so weak as to make it impossible to stand at all, moon boots or not.  I resigned myself to the wheelchair full time, and at the beginning of January we took delivery of a hoist and sling to lift me in and out of bed, and the ‘chair, etc.  The hoist’s name was “Fiona” from Germany.  Alas we could not keep her as her legs wouldn’t open wide enough for Neil to fully utilise her.  So we traded her in for a new hoist – a blonde from Sweden called “Liko” who is much more helpful and obliging when her legs are parted!  Liko and Neil are now very well acquainted…

Right now I can’t wear the moon boots, let alone any of my own shoes and boots due to the foot drop, Plantar fasciitis, and the simple absence of any strength at all in my legs, feet and toes.  Though they still feel everything!  So I’m the comfortable slipper girl now.  After giving away much of my own footwear collection, I’ve kept my very favourite boots and shoes.  Come hell or high water, and maybe with the help of some power tools, one day I WILL get them on again, even if it is, only for show. 

Don't forget to join my new Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/632385993483612/ where there's some photos to go with this blog - and not all of them shoes!

More soon…

Caio

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