AARP Hearing Center
I couldn’t believe my feet could bend that way. Both the left and right twisted at the ankle so that the bottoms turned toward each other at 45-degree angles—what doctors call supination. This caused me to walk, when I could, on the outside edges of my feet.
I was diagnosed at age 6 with a rare genetic illness (one of every 20,000 births), multiple epiphyseal dysplasia (MED), a condition I share with actor Danny DeVito. Basically, my bones deform at the joints throughout my body. Think broken gears grinding together, ever eroding with age.
As a kid, I biked all over the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. At Boston University, I strode the miles-long city campus from end to end. I took a job as a writer and editor in Knoxville, where I got together with my wife of 36 years. We had three daughters, and I threw them around in the pool and played Daddy Shark at the beach. Professionally, I developed and edited scores of publications, and coauthored and edited two travel books. With a friend, I founded a communications and marketing company, and traveled around the South and Midwest, pitching and closing deals.
But at age 53, it all came crashing down. That’s when my feet started bending and I suddenly needed a wheelchair to get around. My marketing company had paid me a six-figure salary, but now I couldn’t do the required travel. I sold my half of the business to my partner for $1 and was forced to retire due to disability.
Unexpected retirement
It was not only a blow to my income in my prime earning years but also to my ego and identity. My wife, a freelance writer, became the main breadwinner. (I helped, with Social Security disability payments.) I felt guilt and shame for putting that on her, but we had no choice, and she didn’t complain.
Over the next couple of years, I had my ankles fused so that my feet lay flat again and I could walk with a cane. This kicked off a surgery-palooza. I had both knees replaced, both shoulders replaced and my stomach reduced via bariatric surgery to deal with my burgeoning weight from being sedentary. Though the surgeries made my joints more stable, the osteoarthritis throughout my body left me in crippling chronic pain. And then depression crept in. With this retirement, I had lost my sense of purpose, identity and relevance.
As I moved from my 50s into my 60s, I experienced a decade of meh. I tried to keep my hand in writing by authoring an unpublished (and likely unpublishable) novel. Mostly I spent my days watching Ellen and sports.
