Kristin's Story

Kristin's Story

 

When I was younger I always played sports. My favorite sport was basketball. But when I was 8 years old I started having pains in my left knee, but I thought nothing of it. Then about 3 months later I was sitting on the grass in the backyard and my dad and my brother started getting up to go to the house. I started screaming and crying because I was in so much pain and I could not put any pressure on my left leg. So my dad and brother took me to a doctor. She took x-rays but she did not know what was happening to my hip. She sent me to another doctor and that doctor sent me to Texas Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital, where I started seeing this new doctor yearly. He took x-rays and told my family and I that I had Perthes. He explained to us that Perthes I have is where the blood flow to the head of the hip gets cut off. He told us that as of right now there is nothing they could do. My mom did not take that very easily.

When I was 9 years old I started having other physical problems. So my parents took me to the University of Oklahoma Medical Center, where we met another doctor. He took some more X-rays and said “you do have Perthes.” He said that I would probably not be able to play basketball ever again. When he told me that I thought my life was over. I told him about the other problems I was having and he said that was because of Perthes. He told us that my hip was out of socket and the only reason I could still walk was because the muscles around my hip were so strong it was allowing me to walk. He said that in order to keep my hip in the socket he would have to do surgery. In the surgery he had to strip my muscles and put my hip back in the socket. After surgery I had to be in a wheelchair for at least 2 years. During that time I did physical therapy to try and get some motion back in my legs.


While I was in a wheelchair I still wanted to compete in sports so I joined the local swim team. I could not use my legs like all the rest of the kids when I swam. I started lifting weights to build up my upper body.

 

 

When I went back to see the doctor at University of Oklahoma Medical Center he told my family and I that my hip was not healing like they thought it would, so he could not promise that I would walk again. After I heard that news I almost stop trying to do anything because I thought that there was no point anymore. But when I came home the next day I realized that my hip would only get worse. So I continued to go to physical therapy and kept swimming. Eventually I worked my way up to the elite swim team.

 

 
I started seeing another doctor at Texas Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital during my 7th grade year. Later that year I started playing golf and was in the marching band. I played snare drum that year. Everyone around me told me that there is no way I was going to be able to play golf.

But that just made me want to work harder. I found a local golf professional that made a golf swing for me. I worked really hard for 2 years so that by the time I was a freshman in high school I would make the high school varsity golf team.A year and a half later I was able to start walking a little but I still had to use crutches. I was on crutches for about 6 months. After I was off crutches I found a new love for golf.

But, I ran into another bump in the road. When I got to high school the head golf coach wanted nothing to do with me because I could not play like the other girls. Finally the assistant coach had the head coach give me a try. One day during my golf class I went outside to show the head coach what I could do. He was surprised at what I could do so he finally put me on the golf team. I started out on junior varsity for the fall semester. I also was in the high school marching band and played the chimes. During Christmas break I went with the marching band to London.

We marched in the New Years Day Parade. It was a 2 mile walk and I did not think I could do that. But I did it anyway and I made it. That’s when I knew when I put my mind to something anything is possible.

I am also going to be a four year letterman. That is hard for regular kids but for a kid with Perthes it is nearly impossible. I made it happen! In the summer of my junior year I am also having college coaches contact me to play for them in college. I never thought that would happen when I found out I had Perthes. At the end of my junior year I have a total of 27 medals that I have won from golf tournaments. My senior year is coming up and I hope that I can still prove people wrong that say kids with Perthes will never be normal. We are normal kids because we have to work for everything we get and nothing comes easy!When the spring semester of my freshmen year came around the coach put me on varsity. At the district tournament that year we came in third. My sophomore year in high school I became the number one girl golfer on the team and I played the xylophone in the marching band. My junior year of high school I played the marimba in the marching band, I became the captain of the girl’s golf team, the number one golfer on the whole team boys and girls. At the district tournament I made the Texas 5-4A All District Team. I became an all-district golfer.

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