This is a song my mum used to sing to me when she’d help me get my shoes on for school. Way past when I realistically needed her help, but I think she found my slowness frustrating, so found it easier to do things for me.

When I think on it now, I find it rather infantalising. I don’t know if it was deliberate on my mum’s part. Sometimes, I suspect so, but I guess that’s not so kind. I think she needed to be needed, so…. there she was, putting my shoes on for me when I was a teenager.

Because of the way cerebral palsy has me walking, I developed bunions at the earliest age. Apparently, it’s common and yet, no-one ever said. Why does no-one ever tell you what it’s likely you will face?

I became aware of the misshapen bony lump at the bottom of my big toes when I was 11. The bones would in fact, knock together. I thought I knew what they were, but I’d only learnt that bunions happened to people with feet that worked too hard, i.e. old people who’ve walked a lifetime, or ballet dancers, up on their toes. I was neither of those things and I didn’t know, even then, that it wasn’t a malady that couldn’t be fixed with Elastoplast.

I asked my physiotherapist to have a look and half a second later she confirmed my suspicion. “Yep, those are bunions.”

So there I was, 11 years old, with an “old lady disease” that would only get progressively worse, more misaligned and painful. It wouldn’t be going away.

Shoes became even more of an enemy because my feet became wider. Trainers were pretty much exclusively recommended and I had to hide my feet away. Mum would look at the red bumps and sing her song and I’d smile tightly, hating my body more. Because I bloody was scared of them. They hurt now, what would they be like when I was an old lady?

I’m 35 now. I’ve spent my life trying to wear wide fitting boots. I remember a summer when I was about 15 where I went looking for Ugg boots out of season, because they were the only shoes I didn’t ache in. My God, how I sweated.

I’ve learnt to love the look of skirts, boots and tights. I’ve spent £100s on bunion cushions – sticky plasters to go over the bump and save the rubbing – and sleeves – thin fabrics to wear on my foot with foam padding over the bump. I hunt for shoes in the sales every season because otherwise shoes will cost me upwards of £150 a pair. That’s not money I have. But every shoe I wear needs room for an insole, my toe separator and a cushion or sleeve depending on my pain. My feet ache every day.

But with this cold snap we’ve been having (that phrase is useless, I’m sorry, I have been frozen to my very core and my body has resisted every movement) I have barely been able to take a step. My foot has throbbed and the only way I’ve been able to move is by springing off my big toe on my left, most-misaligned foot. I am miserable.

The only painkiller that has taken the edge off is co-codamol and you can’t take that long term because it’s addictive, damnit. I’ve made another appointment with podiatry in the hope they can reassess my orthotics. But it’s 4 weeks away. 4 weeks in this pain? I have ordered a night-time splint online, hoping to pull my big toe back in a straight position for some relief. I never thought I’d actively go seeking the pain of night-time splints again.

My mum’s song is right though. I wouldn’t be calling attention to the ugliest and currently most painful part of myself publicly if I didn’t have something to vent. I am scared.

Five years ago, I met with an orthopaedic surgeon, wondering if we had reached the point where surgery was necessaru because I was sick of the omnipresent pain and shoes never fitting. As it is, I know now that that pain was nothing. I was still able to walk around. Oh, how I will appreciate it if that comes back to me. As I type, I’ve put my toe separator and bunion sleeve on together for the first time in the longest time. The absence of the throbbing pain tells me my big toe has finally been forced to sit straight at long last. But I’m still dreading the school run this afternoon.

My orthotics are in a state and I just don’t think they’re fit for purpose. I’m absolutely terrified that I am headed back to the orthopaedic surgeon.

I have never forgotten what the surgeon said to me years ago. The x-ray showed that the deformity in my left foot was not as severe as it looked. “It has to be seen to be fully appreciated” he smiled sympathetically at my foot.

He told me that recovery would take a long time and because my gait would never change thanks to CP, there was absolutely no guarantee the bunion wouldn’t simply reform given enough time. Surgery might even impact the amount of movement I had in the toes. It might make it worse, not better.

He asked about my children. At the time, there was just Squidge, a tiny, energetic toddler. I mention how I would definitely like another child.

“I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing this while you still have young children to run around after.”

Fair point.

So, I learnt that the pain may not be eradicated, only replaced with a new pain that may not leave. I learnt I may not even have the capacities I have now and oh my God, there is very little about my physicality that scares me more than the idea of not being able to walk. I have worked too hard to be able to do this, the most simple of actions that so many people in the world are able to take for granted.

For now, I am hoping that new orthothics will be enough. I’m not sure though because my shoes are clearly no longer wide enough. But have I really left the need for surgery as long as I can? Surely I have, if the pain is now stopping me doing the simplest of things like the school run?

Yep, consider me scared of the bloody bunion. Because no-one warns you about their likelihood in the feet of little children with disabilities, with enough to deal with! Oh what I would give for this ugly, painful thing to be because of years of ballet or dancing in inappropriate shoes. Not just from existing and trying to put one foot in front of the other.