Not a Poster Child

by Francine Falk-Allen

  I found that the pain had subsided somewhat; it was now a duller ache. I limped to the car.

  After we got past the main door of the school, she said, “I don’t appreciate your pulling this. I had to leave work to come pick you up. You can walk!”

  “I can now, but I couldn’t before. It really hurt, Mother. The nurse said it might be growing pains. Is there such a thing as ‘growing pains’?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She was probably just saying that.”

  She had been a child who would do charades to stay out of school, whereas I considered a sick day at home a huge loss of social and scholastic time. She was probably worried about what caused this pain, but my sense was that she thought I should have toughed it out, or that I was exaggerating.

  Mother had little patience for body issues—mine, anyway.

  We were sitting at the kitchen table one Saturday afternoon, and she said, “I’m going to get you a training bra.”

  “What!? Why!?”

  “Your breasts are starting to develop.”

  I was mortified. My face grew hot, and I glanced down at my chest. People must be able to see that I was getting breasts and I had not even noticed. I still thought of myself as a little girl.

  “I don’t want one.”

  “I want you to get one; besides, it will help protect your nipples so your clothing doesn’t rub against them.”

  Nipples. My mother just said, “nipples.” So, were my nipples developing too, and could people also see those? I wasn’t going to look down at them again. Okay, I thought, maybe I better get a bra to cover these things up.

  “I’ll get you one, and you can try it,” she said. “The training bras have stretchy cups so they stretch as you grow. See, look at this ad in the paper.”

  There it was, a photo of a young girl with barely developed breasts in a white bra with stretchy cups. You couldn’t see her nipples.

  “Okay,” I said. “But if I don’t like it, I’m not going to wear it.”

  I actually did like it, once I got used to the somewhat tight feeling around my rib cage, because now that I knew I had breasts and also the more embarrassing nipples, I felt like I had something between me, my undershirts and sweaters, and the gawking world. The boys sometimes snapped the back of my bra through my blouses, which I found to be a disconcerting acknowledgement of my maturing body. I think it was probably a compliment that they noticed, but I was mortified by their behavior—until I saw that they did this to many of the girls, who tittered and said the boys were stupid. I tried to adopt this attitude.

  When I was twelve and a half, I went to San Francisco in the summer to spend a week with my sister, LaVonne, and her family. I started my period while I was there and went through nearly a box of Kleenex before LaVonne called from work to see how the day was going. She treated my news matter-of-factly—simply told me where she kept her menstrual products— and I was relieved that a big deal was not made of it. When I shyly told my mother over the phone what had transpired, she was silent.

  Back home again, at one of our kitchen table talks (mealtime was about the only time we were seated face-to-face), Mother and I discussed Kotex and accompanying belts. Suddenly, she commented indignantly, “I didn’t start my period until I was fourteen!” with an accusatory look at me, and the accompanying bobblehead movement.

  I stared back at her. I didn’t know what to say. As if I’d had a choice! I felt, after that, that she thought I was oversexed, and I was embarrassed about my “early” development, which was actually right in line with the other sixth graders.

  When I had a day or two of debilitating, doubled-over cramps with heavy periods in high school and needed to stay in bed, Mother thought I was lying about it, as she had never had cramps. My body type and inner functions seem to have taken after the Allen/Owen side, not so much the Weber/Smith side. Mother thought whatever happened to me that she hadn’t experienced herself was either a sham or abnormal. This did not help our already tense relationship, exacerbated by my thoughts that my mother was frustratingly simple-minded and outdated in her thinking.

  At summer church camp that year, I won a cardboard award plaque for “Miss Primp.” This was likely instigated by my old friend from the sixth-grade bathroom, Michelle, and her mother, a counselor. I was again embarrassed, because it was true: I was so careful about my appearance—my pony tail, my clothing, all of it—even at girls’ summer camp.

  Michelle had a natural, pixie-like beauty, despite her tomboy walk and athleticism, and was attractive to boys. When one of the girls I liked at camp, who was meeting me for the first time, ribbed me about being Miss Primp, I took it more good-naturedly—I just explained that I felt I needed to look the best possible to make up for my weird walk and skinny, paralyzed leg.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “That’s some wiggle you’ve got there.” She followed this up with a hand gesture that described the rolling wave of my fanny as seen from the back as if it were something especially attractive. Prior to that comment, no one had ever said anything like this to me.

  The following school year, seventh grade, I did manage to ditch the old hairstyle and instead wore a long fringe of bangs with my chestnut hair pulled back just on top, with the rest falling to my shoulders. With a tiny bit of lipstick, I felt like I was beginning to look as nice as other girls.

  14

  —

  how i spent my summer

  Around 1961, I somehow got invited to be on the March of Dimes telethon being shot at the northern California KCRA-TV station. So, I guess somebody did decide I was sort of a poster child. There was no registry of polio kids, so I’m not sure how they found me. Was the March of Dimes trolling for crippled kids at Kaiser in Vallejo? Did my mom see an ad and like the idea of me being on TV?

  By the time the event rolled around I was kind of expecting acknowledgment of some sort and was excited about being on television. I donned my good yellow angora sweater and a pastel wool plaid skirt—it was the nicest thing I had to wear for an occasion like this—and we drove the fifty miles to Sacramento.

  Once there, we spent a couple of hours waiting backstage for me to be called on. There was no cool and comfy dressing room where we could lounge and watch a monitor. Finally, they cued me onstage and I limped out. By that time, I was perspiring like crazy; I was shiny-faced and my bangs were limp, separated, and hanging in my eyes. My fluffy sweater was acting as a personal sauna, worsened by the intensely bright and hot lights on stage.

  Hoss Cartwright of the “Bonanza” TV show (Dan Blocker) took my small hand in his huge paw and interviewed me, if you could call it that. He mostly put his big, perspiry arm around me and—with no cowboy accent at all—said nice things into the camera about how people should contribute. He was very sweet, but his large head was also dripping with sweat—he was suffering even more than I was under those lights. I appreciated that he was spending hours doing this to raise money for polio treatment and vaccination. The man was a saint.

  By 1961, people already were beginning to think polio was “over with.” (It wasn’t; the epidemic had peaked, but it would be another forty years before the US would see its last new case.) I was petrified in the harsh glare, afraid I’d say something dumb, embarrassed at being so hot and shiny, and although occasionally a clever child, I hardly said a word that day. After a minute or two, Hoss patted me on the back and sent me backstage.

  When it was over, Mother and I went out to the car and drove home without fanfare, as if nothing had happened.

  “Well,” she said, “that was a waste of time.”

  I agreed with her. I was tired and just wanted to get home and take off my hot clothes. So much for meeting celebrities. And at school, only one person had seen me; the telethons were so long that no one could bear to watch the entire show.

  Still, two minutes of poster child fame, eh?

  I was thirteen when Mother took me to a clinic to see an orthopedic surgeon from Sacramento named Robert Mearns i
n the spring after the TV appearance. Two decades later I would learn that he had an impeccable reputation among orthopedists, but at the time all I knew was that he was in our town at a clinic, taking appointments with kids who had had polio or other foot and limb maladies.

  Dr. Mearns told us that because I had almost reached my full height, which at that point was about four feet ten, it would be smart to consider one or both of a couple of potential surgeries. Possibly some charity or government agency was offering to pay; it’s doubtful that Mother had the money for something that pricey. If she did foot the bill, this would have been a most expensive gift.

  “One option is to remove one bone on the outside of your polio foot and fuse two others together,” Dr. Mearns said—this is how I remember his words, anyway—“to stabilize your foot so you won’t roll it inward.”

  “Rolling” the ankle meant that it pushed in and down as I walked, which could eventually cause the joint to begin to touch the ground. The correction was a triple arthrodesis (triple, I know now, because it is the fusion of the talocalcaneal, talonavicular, and calcaneocuboid joints in the foot). Whether any bone was actually removed, I do not know.

  No one mentioned to us before the operation that it might not be a permanent fix. Later in life the correction can start to weaken, causing the ankle to once again “roll” inside, though possibly not as severely. (This started to happen to me about fifty years later. Luckily I got the stable forty years most people get out of this procedure plus an extra ten.)

  The ankle roll was already making my awkward gait even more difficult for any distance at all, though I was somewhat oblivious to this. I was a pre-teen and most of my awareness was going into making good grades or hoping I was as pretty and popular as other girls, plus some real sadness, confusion, and sense of loss at having to give up dolls. (One of my friends had recently—disdainfully—commented, “I don’t want to play with dolls,” when she’d come to visit. I think she already had actual breasts at twelve. My first thought was, Okay, what else is there to do? but I hadn’t said it, suddenly aware that, again, it was time to grow up from a childhood that had not felt childish since I was three.)

  The other potential operation suggested was to put a stop in my Achilles tendon. Stabilizing the Achilles would essentially put an end to my drop foot. The downside was that I would have to decide at thirteen on one lifetime heel height, since my foot would be frozen in one position.

  My foot is essentially a weak hinged platform at the bottom of my leg. This allows me to stand and maybe walk, but not run. This condition, as I mentioned earlier, greatly increases the potential for tripping (and falling), as the big toe, which in my case is also paralyzed and hangs even lower than the plane of my foot, has a tendency to catch on even tiny things, unless I wear some type of ankle brace, laced boots, or orthotic to support the toe and ankle. I also have sprained that toe, but only five or ten times—a surprisingly low number, considering the risk. If you’ve ever caught a sandal on a stepping stone and gone flying, you have an inkling of one frequent hazard befalling those of us with a drop foot.

  At the time the second operation was suggested, I had dreams of wearing high heels and prom dresses and doing all the things grown-up ladies did in high heels. No one mentioned that this was less likely than a visit from the White Rabbit.

  Mother gave me the option to choose which operations I wanted. So I nixed the Achilles operation. I was fearful of having a foot that did not move up and down. I also thought (naively) that maybe someday it was not going to be a drop foot anymore, and I might, yes, wear high heels. I did agree to the ankle stabilization (the triple arthrodesis), however, and plans were made to do the surgery in the summer between seventh and eighth grades, in Mercy Hospital in Sacramento.

  This was the same summer I informed Mother with gravity that now that I was a teenager, she must never call me by the nickname “Miss Muffet” or “Muffet” again. When she began to form my given name, “Fran-cine,” in her mouth, it was difficult for her and sounded like two words. Forever after, she spoke it that way—“Fran-cine.” Never quickly, always deliberately, always reminding me, though not purposely, that I asked her to call me by my real name. That I had forged a calm exit plan from the humiliation of my nickname, just as I would plan, a few years later, an exit from my childhood home.

  The worst aspects for me, facing this surgery, were fear of the expected pain afterward, how serious it sounded, and the rehabilitation process. I also wondered if it would actually improve my condition. The whole prospect of having my body cut into, a bone broken away, and those other two bones somehow knitted together (with a steel pin, it turned out, which much later set off the early airport security alarms) was deeply frightening. Losing consciousness with anesthesia also frightened me, since I had fallen and knocked myself out twice before. I was convinced that it was necessary, so I followed through with the plan—but I was panicked by the time they took me into the yucky green operating room and began administering the anesthesia.

  I awoke to horrible pain and nausea, which I had not been advised to expect, in a darkened room. The nurses were slow to respond to my need when I called out, “I’m going to throw up!” (And it was green in the stainless steel tray they provided.) When I was wracked with sobs of deeply aching pain, they tuttutted me and acted as if I were not being stalwart enough. There were one or two other young surgery patients in the same room with me, which had four beds in it, and the nurses seemed more concerned with those kids’ sleep than my pain.

  “Don’t cry!” they admonished me. “You’ll wake the other children. You need to be quiet.”

  When, at last, Dr. Mearns came on his rounds, he immediately recommended painkillers for me, and chastened the nurses in whispering tones across the room from my bed.

  “She’s in a lot of pain,” he said. “This was a serious operation. You should have tended to this. If she complains of pain, give her something for it, and it will help her sleep.”

  I have a great deal of respect for nurses now, but in the first thirteen years of my life I did not have good experiences with them. Luckily, they listened to the doctor, and the drugs did help. Still, even with the painkillers, my foot was throbbing, and I could not get into a position where I was not in acute pain. Additionally, when I first looked at the cast, there was an alarming deep red spot on the outside at the surgery spot.

  When he next came to see me, Dr. Mearns—one of the most considerate and gentle doctors I have ever had, well understanding my fears and pain and the emotional angst of a thirteen-year-old—told me that the red spot was normal, there would be some seepage of blood for a while. The operation, he said, had been successful.

  I’d had a choice, because I was thirteen, of being in the children’s or the adult ward at the hospital. In mulling this over, with no clear idea what this choice really meant, I had opted for the children’s ward; I thought it would be more fun, and that being with adults would present a stodgy, quiet option.

  Big mistake.

  It was only after I’d spent one day in the hospital that they told me and Mother that only parents could visit in the children’s ward, no one else. Not even my sister, who was now thirty-two, could come to visit me.

  “Not even my sister?” I said, incredulous.

  On the third day of my stay, a nurse came to my bed and said, “Someone’s here to see you, so we’re going to take you down the hall.” This was a bit of excitement for me. She helped me through the awkward process of getting out of the bed and standing on one foot, the other foot painfully throbbing in its heavy cast, then sitting down in a wheelchair.

  I was wheeled down the hall to the end of the children’s ward, where LaVonne was holding the exterior door open and standing outside the hospital on a landing.

  “Boy, am I ever angry!” she exclaimed. “They wouldn’t let me come in to see you! I told them you only have one parent and your father is dead. I said, ‘I’m an adult relative, so why can’t I take the place of her
other parent?’ But they said, ‘No, that’s the rule.’ I would have brought the girls”—my two nieces—“in to see you too, if I could have. I gave those people a piece of my mind! Finally, someone said I could stand out here for a minute and they’d go get you so I could see you.”

  I really appreciated her righteous anger. We had a few moments when I could tell her that it hurt and I hated it there, and then she had to leave before they caught her prolonging the illegal visit.

  This visitor restriction created a very lonely situation for the week or more that I was hospitalized, but at least my big sister had made the effort and once again stood up for me.

  After my stint in the hospital came training in using crutches— the underarm type, as I could not put any weight on the cast. Anyone who has broken a foot may know the trials of bathing with a plastic bag, keeping the cast covered and the foot up out of water. No showers during this time. (Now, of course, there are often removable casts, but generally not for surgery like this, when there is risk of damaging the work before it heals.)

  I went back to eighth grade on crutches. I had to deal with and manage slippery floors, scary moments, and my good angora sweater pilling under the arms. I had aching hands, shoulders, and armpit muscles, and an armpit rash on my sensitive skin, newly de-fuzzed with Nair depilatory—Mother was nearly hairless and shaved nothing, and didn’t think I should either. On the plus side, I had no PE classes, which had always been either humiliating or tiring for me anyway. My treasured social life was impaired a bit, but I could concentrate on my studies and make good grades.

  Back at school, one of my girlfriends, Gail Armstrong, asked, “Was the operation a success?”