AN INSPIRING STORY: DAVE AND DENISE HULL

AN INSPIRING STORY: DAVE AND DENISE HULL

People tell us remarkable stories about how Superfeet have made a difference in their lives. Today’s guest blog post is from Denise Hull.

My husband, Dave, was diagnosed with a high grade Stage 3 sarcoma called malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor in his sciatic nerve, in the summer of 2009. What he thought was a persistent injury at the gym, turned out to be a 5 cm rapidly growing, malignant tumor. After many rounds of chemo and radiation, they were able to shrink it down to nothing but scar tissue. However, to prevent it from returning, the source had to be removed via surgery resulting in the resection of about 13 inches of his sciatic nerve.

Dave

The good news is that we just celebrated his 3rd anniversary of being cancer free. However, as you can imagine, his recovery was slow and painful. And while he has made a full recovery and in fact has a range of movement beyond what any of the doctors hoped he does have a complete loss of function in his left leg from the knee down. This includes permanent drop foot, loss of about 95% of his hamstrings, limited function of his hip flexors and abductors and requires a brace to walk. In addition to his brace, he was told that he needed an orthopedic insert for his healthy, right foot to help compensate for the changes in his gait post the physical rehab and resulting limp from the loss of his sciatic nerve.

He noticed Superfeet when he was with me, shopping for running shoes at the North Wales Running store. One of the employees there explained that they were similar to orthopedic shoe inserts and helped him fit a GREEN into his shoe. He loved it. He felt like it gave him more support and provided the slight lift that his foot needed. It has great arch support as well and with the extra work and strain on his right leg and foot, he has really appreciated having it. He also remarks when he forgets it, or doesn’t swap it from one shoe to the other that his foot is sore because it ’misses’ the additional support.

Since he has been using Superfeet, he has seen two different orthotic/prosthetic professionals as well as a physical rehab specialist and all of them commented on how wonderful the Superfeet inserts were and that they were exactly what his leg needed. They marveled that the Superfeet were so inexpensive compared to typical orthopedic inserts.

Recently, my chiropractor noticed how flat my feet were and tested them to see if I needed orthopedic inserts. He said in fact I did. So I stopped at the North Wales Running store to get a pair of Superfeet for my running shoes, and I have to say, that after using them, exclusively when I run or exercise, over the past 3 weeks, I have noticed some improvements. Most noticeably was the fact that my feet didn’t hurt after a recent nine-mile run. Normally, they would be sore for at least a day. Also, I haven’t had any lower back pain in the last few weeks, which I was attributing to running. I’m so excited to see what other benefits my body will reap from those 2 little inserts!

Photo: Denise Hull

August 27, 2013