Jul. 21, 2022
Lymphedema
Let us take a trip to 1974 I was five years old doing my regular playing in a pair of plastic Barbie shoes, I fell down the stairs and my ankles are swollen and won't go down.
so we go home but now I'm in a body brace from my chest to my feet because I now have to learn to walk again, physical therapy every Saturday. so let us go to the first day of school I am on the playground in a dress(because of the brace can't wear pants.) there are kids playing around and these little boys think it would be funny to pull my panties down because I can't bend down to pull them back up myself. so my teacher picks me up I think we're going to the bathroom no but instead, she takes me home and leaves me on my front porch. I am outside still with my panties down by my ankles, our neighbor saw me and called my grandmother and told her what happen. our neighbor came and got me, and I stayed with her who later became my babysitter.
my grandmother takes me to the hospital and they tell her I have a condition called lymphedema, which basically is the swollen of the blood vessels from lack of circulation.
My grandmother went to school the next day and the teacher was fired, but for me, the nightmare had just begun I got the nickname no ankles and that name lasted through high school. my legs and ankles swell daily but I do everything that a normal person can do, my doctors told my grandmother I would not walk again and if I did I would need a cane or crutches and I don't need any of it. but I was suppose to not be here yet people my whole life have made me feel different because I have large calves and have always to this day be self conscious about it lymphedema has been a tough thing to deal with, but now that Wendy Williams has it now it's conversation, when I was growing up it waas not talked about and if it was it was to make fun of me. through it all I am still here moving, dancing and walking all the things the doctors said I would never do. I have pain some days to the point I don't want to move yet I keep pressing forward because I am stronger than what I have been through!