"Why do you walk like that?"
"Why are you limping all the time?"
"Walk straighter, don't curve out your legs!"
I have heard these three sentences, and variations of all three, for most of my life. I walk with a slight limp, something I do not realize I do. This is because I have "DDH", or Developmental Dislocation (Dysplasia) of the Hipbone. DDH, for my case, means that the ball & socket joints of my right hip were not developed at birth. After several surgeries in my first year of life, I was placed in a full body cast, from my shoulders, down to my ankles. There was an area cut out in the cast where I was able to wear diapers and such. But imagine a one year old child, who didn't get to see her first steps on her own until much later, when all the other little kids around her were running to their heart's content. The surgeries that were performed on me resulted in artificial bones replacing the bones I was lacking, and so the cast was placed to set the bones in place. After the body cast, came along the brace. The brace I was given to wear was like a metal apparatus that wrapped around both of my thighs and hips, and connected in the middle. This was a stabilizer for my bones. I still couldn't functionally walk on my own, but I was able to waddle around for short periods of time like a penguin, so there's that. Years past and I was finally able to walk on my own. DDH is known to cause arthritis at younger ages than usual, so I shouldn't have been able to do what I did for 14+ years, which is play softball and volleyball. Softball, the sport I played for 14 years, and Volleyball for 3, weren't as easy on me as it was for other athletes. Running hurt, a lot. People always thought I was just complaining when we had to run bleachers (I mean, who wouldn't complain about bleachers? Those sucked.), but I wasn't complaining, it genuinely hurt me to run not only for long periods of time, but at any angle that wasn't flat. I braved the storm, and got to enjoy a sport that was my stress reliever, and where I got to meet my best friends. But, nearly 19 years later, I wouldn't change anything because it makes me who I am and yeah, it was hard to accept it at first, but I had to realize that there wasn't anything that I could do to stop it completely, so why not just embrace it?
