Brace Yourself

Remember I told you about my Drop Foot? Or Foot Drop? I never remember which one is correct. Anyway, I never posted about my brace. Leg braces are notoriously uncomfortable. If I were Bambi (left) for example, I'd shoot myself. I've had Drop Foot once before and it cleared up by itself. This time it hasn't. It's better than it was, but it's still there. When I was in Silver Lake, the Physical Therapy department dug up a brace for me. Braces are usually custom made so that they'll fit the patient perfectly. This one was some dusty old thing that was probably made for a dusty old patient who had long since gone to that big gym in the sky. When I tried it on, it cut into my leg. And my foot. And my calf. In fact there were very few places it didn't cut into. Maybe my head. I actually wore it a day or two before I realized that if wearing this monstrosity was the only way I was going to able to walk well again, I'd rather stay home, sit on the couch and eat Dipsy Doodles for the rest of my life. Maybe I could hire a nice woman named Olga to bring me my Dipsy Doodles. And my bedpan. Oops, I forgot about that. Okay, never mind. But it really was ridiculously uncomfortable. After a week or two the Drop Foot improved on its own, so I didn't wear the thing anymore. When I got home, I was pretty much a shut-in at Chayie's house for the first few weeks, so walking wasn't all that important. At the very beginning I used a walker and that helped. Once I got out into the real world, however, my left foot (starring Daniel Day Lewis) would drag slightly, but that was enough for it to catch on the cracks in the sidewalk occasionally. Seeing as how I was quite averse to falling and cracking my head open, I decided it was time to do something. A friend of mine has a nephew who manufactures braces and prostheses, so I went to see him. When I showed him the brace I had from Silver Lake, he found it quite amusing; it was so antiquated, he said, that he wouldn't be caught dead making one like that for a patient. It was made out of hard, white plastic and was quite heavy (see picture on the right). The one he made for me (see above) is made of a carbon-graphite material and is extremely light. Furthermore, the shaft that runs from the top to the foot is twisted. This design is called "energy return", meaning it literally puts a bounce in your step. Ingenious! I wore it out of his office and it felt great. I had been wearing my brown Rockports when I went to the guy's office, and they have a nice, thick, removable insole. The bottom of the brace goes under the insole. The thing is, you can't wear the same shoes every day. It gets embarassing after a while. Also smelly. So after a year or two, I switched to my black Rockports. Their insole is much thinner. Ouch! The brace cut into my sole almost immediately. Nothing worse than something messing with your sole, I always say. Then Shabbos came and I wore my dress Rockports (I like Rockports). Their insole is even thinner. Ouch, ouch! Even worse. I went back to the guy and he made some kind of adjustment and said now they'd be comfortable no matter which Rockports I wore. Uh-huh. In your dreams. So now I've pretty much stopped wearing the darn thing altogether. I figure if I fall and kill myself, my kids can always sue the city over the sidewalk crack that did me in. Or the bracemaker.

Or both. I think I'll end this post with a little ditty...

(with apologies to Sheldon Harnick):

Bracemaker, bracemaker, make me a brace,

Please make it fit, or I'll fall on my face.

Bracemaker, bracemaker, I'm warning you,

You won't want my kids to sue.