Finding shoes is like gold

This is actually a speech that I wrote out for speech class. I was suppose to bring in a article that respresents me and I brought in a pair of shoes. Then presented my speech. In the middle of my speech I dont know why but I started crying IN FRONT OF A CLASS FULL OF PEOPLE I DONT KNOW and my speech was the last speech, so when I was done  there was a pin drop silence for a moment and the I got the loudest appaulause after and I dont know if it was because I was tearing up or because of my actually speech.

  

In 2007 I walked into Target frustrated and determined to find a pair of shoes that fit my feet. As I walked in and I browsed the shoe aisle, I tried on shoe after shoe. Ranging from size 7 to 11 the biggest size they had available. Still no shows fit my feet. Walking out of Target that day I felt exhausted and depleted done with looking for shoes. I said a little prayer in my car that day, I talked to God and I asked him, “If there is a such thing as a next life time, can I have smaller feet?” I went home that night and talked to my mom about what was going on and because she was so annoyed with me always wearing flip flops and convince that I wasn’t able to find shoes that fit because I was fat, gave me $100 and we went to Lenard Wide shoe store. A little embarrassed but a little excited to be able to find shoes that might actually fit. I walked into the shoe store, expecting to be able to find shoes. To my surprise I wasn’t able to find a shoe to fit. I remember the shoe sales person, finally finding a pair that he knew would stretch out. Put those shoes on me and for the first time in two years, I was able to fit a pair of shoes. They weren’t the prettiest pair of shoes but none the less they were black and almost dressy shoes that I could almost hide underneath a pair of long slacks. Which happen to be these very pair of shoes, worn down and beaten up?  Every once in a while I walked into shoe stores looked around if no one was around, I would gather the courage up to try a pair of shoes on.

I would make jokes to my friends and family I would ask them, if they thought feet could grow, when your 25. Everyone would just laugh it off and say no, including me. Who in the world would think at the age of 25 your feet were growing!? Pretty, funny concept apparently that concept isn’t that funny. About three years after walking into that Target, my neurologist called me and told me I had a pituitary tumor, late last year. She immediately ordered some tests and sent me in for this blood work. I found out that not only did, I have tumor but that tumor was pushing on the pituitary gland causing the gland to secrete something called HGH (human growth hormone). In a normal person there HGH for a women is suppose to be between 1-10 and a male 1-5, mine was 72.

I found a doctor here that looked over everything and immediately sent me to Cedar Sinai in California in order to do more testing. I took a trip to California and got a bunch of blood work and brain MRI’s. The blood work they did was suppose to suppress my growth hormone and show me what my IGF-1 Levels were, in this test my IGF-1 levels were suppose to be between 88-300 and mine was at 1009.  They were able to confirm that I had something called Acromegaly.

Left me a swirl of confusion, questions, relief and answers, acromegaly is a  form of gigantism. If this would of happened to me when I was younger, I would be a giant but because it started while I was an adult, Im still growing but not all in height mainly, certain parts of me are growing which the rest of me is staying the same.

Which brought a lot of relief in knowing why I wasn’t able to fit any shoes. Though the swelling in my feet have gone down. I haven’t gone shoe shopping, I keep these shoes to remind myself of the struggle I went through in finding these shoes and to remind my self to be compassionate to people daily. Because I don’t know what there going through. I should know my self inside and out and not to take myself for granted. I should never dimiss what someone is going through, just because it doesn’t seem that bad to me. Though not being able to find shoes might not be a big deal to someone else. These shoes helped my doctor to look for the tumor that caused my Acromegaly.

Life Lesson: Speeches are not that scary after all!