Miracle Legs | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Miracle Legs | Previous Challenge Entry
By Debbie Roome
05/07/20
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It was four years since I’d been out of the village, three years since I’d been to the whitewashed school room. That morning, my mother lifted me onto her back, my crooked legs wrapping around her. I could still walk a little way but children laughed at me. “Spider legs,” they’d shout, or “stick insect walking by.”

I’d cried waterfalls of salty tears in the past, but that day I didn’t care. Mama was excited too, shouting to neighbours, telling them where we were going. We caught up with a bunch of ladies heading to the market and joined them as we followed the dusty track to the bottom of the mountain. We sat with them for a while as they unrolled grass mats and displayed bananas, coconuts and sweet potatoes. I was anxious to keep moving though, sniffing deeply as a salty breeze passed by. I touched Mama’s arm. “We need to go to the ship.”

“Yes, we’ll go soon, Celia.”

An hour later, I clung to her back as she took the last steps of our journey. The hospital ship was bigger than our village, whiter than the clouds and would be right here in Bougainville for six months. I almost forgot to breathe, finally sucking in a rush of air.

Normally I was ashamed of my crooked legs, the way I couldn’t straighten them and how my knees were a doorway apart. That day I wanted everyone in the ship to look at them. “Can we go inside? How long must we wait? Will I have to stay here?”

The doctor was from India, a handsome man with skin the same colour as my own. The nurse was from England and had pale blonde hair, tied back with a yellow bow. They examined my legs with gentle hands, hands that weren’t rough from working like my mother’s were.

The interpreter asked us questions and explained our answers to the doctor. Finally, she told us what he’d said. “Your bent legs were probably caused by rickets as a young child, Celia. The doctor will do surgery on your knees and bones and can make your legs much straighter than they are now.”

“Straight enough to go back to school?”

The interpreter translated my question and the doctor smiled, showing glossy white teeth as he nodded his head.

The first night was scary without Momma. I had a real bed with a mattress, and white sheets and a pillow as soft as a newborn kitten. The day of my surgery was even more scary. I knew I’d be going to sleep for a few hours and the doctors would cut my bones and join them so they would look normal. “Count to ten for us,” the interpreter said as I lay in the operating theatre. I made it to three and that was all I could remember when I woke up hours later.

My head felt dizzy like it was going to roll off my shoulders but I had to peep at my legs. Moving slowly like the brown spiral snails that lived in our village, I lifted the sheet and looked underneath. That morning, my knees had touched the edges of the mattress. Now they were side by side, my legs straight lines under the plaster casts. I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me with special exercises and stretches but I didn’t care at all. This was the most amazing, incredible day of my life!

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