On My Own Two by Young Lee

In grade school, I used to launch my ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) from my foot and into the air by twisting my toes as I kicked as high and as hard as I could. I would watch my AFOs spin in the sky before they fell to the ground. The…

Recently, my father sent me a copy of doctor’s notes he received in 1989. Those familiar with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) would recognize many of the phrases scattered throughout: “chronic weakness in lower extremities” and “increasing grip weakness,” to name a couple. It was when he first learned he had CMT,…