Raymond Barrilleaux's Story
i have club feetI stumbled on this website as I was looking to find "mis matched" shoes on the web. (No real luck with the shoes, but I will continue and can afford to simply buy two pair). I am thrilled to find a web site where people with this condition can "vent" their stories. Only people with a "club" can truly understand the challenges in life it presents. My story is from a "male" perspective.....I can't imagine the difficulties confronting a female with this condition.
Now 46 years young, I was born the sixth of nine children and the only child in my family with a severe club of my right foot. My Orthopedic's approach to correction was a series of braces and castings followed by surgery in adolescence.
Thru the age of eleven, I spent each summer casted. As an active boy growing up in Texas, I learned to "hop" on my left foot with great proficiency and skill (crutches were just NOT quick or mobile enough). When the casts were off, my father conducted regimented "stretching" exercises each evening. (thank you Dad!).
In spite of and maybe because I could not participate in athletics as a youth, my high school years proved to be blessed with success in baseball, basketball, soccer, cross country, and track. I could not be stopped.....I found myself wearing my club foot as a badge and "showing people" my foot after "beating them to the hoop", "gunning them down from deep in the hole", or "scoring on a breakaway". I became the only sibling from my family (we all went to the same high school) to "letter" in the sports listed above.
There have been and continue to be many challenges and setbacks, severe ankle sprains, mutiple breaks of my outer metatarsal, and much ongoing pain.
Now, whenever someone comments on my "scrawny" leg or "deformed" foot I am quick to show them the scars and describe and educate them to the conddition......generally when I ask if they are up for a game of "one on one" I get "no taker".
As I look in retrospect at my youth and experiences with my club, I have become proud of my "badge", thru its challenges it has helped to make me who I am today.
Added on 20 Nov 2007