ADAMANT REAL LIFE
Dawn Harwood, 40, from Wrexham, spent her evenings on edge, thinking that her daughter would go to extreme lengths to try and end her pain...
Settling down for bed, I wracked my brain for the latest story before I was quickly interrupted.
‘I can’t take this anymore Mum,’ my daughter Serenity, then 10, cried out.
‘I want to go into the kitchen and chop my foot off,’ she blurted, bursting into tears.
Sitting in shock, I didn’t know what to do.
Was she capable of doing such a thing? Would she try?
‘You’re going to have to hide the knife block,’ I whispered to my husband Bill, now 45, when going downstairs that evening.
Would Serenity actually try and harm herself in that way?
It was an intense, gutwrenching feeling that didn’t sit right with us.
Needing to warm a hot water bottle on a nightly basis, as well as hearing Serenity screaming out in pain, I knew she wasn’t being dramatic – she’d been in agony since she was born…
Finding out that we were pregnant in 2009, me and Bill, as well as our daughter Caitlin, then eight, were over the moon.
Only, having my 37-week scan, at Wrexham Maelor Hospital, North Wales, we had unexpected news.
‘We think that your baby has got something called club foot, Dawn,’ the consultant said.
‘What is that?’ I blurted, having never heard of the condition before.
‘It means that your baby’s feet are going to be turned in, it’s nothing to worry about,’ the consultant said.
Despite the initial shock, I went home that evening to tell Bill.
It was an intense feeling for us all
Looking at images of babies with club foot online, we both let out a huge sigh of relief.
‘They are making us worry over that?’ I said, trawling through several pictures that all looked the same – one foot turned in a little.
And then, two weeks later, on 26 March 2010, Serenity was born weighing a healthy 8lb 2oz –we didn’t have anything to panic about.
‘Oh my God! I didn’t think that it would look like that,’ I said as I caught a glimpse of our daughter.
For taking Serenity in my arms, I noticed that her feet were completely curled up.
It was as if her tiny feet were tucked inside of her body.
I could hardly even see her toes – this was nothing like the pictures me and Bill had looked at online.
‘I feel like I’m hurting her,’ I confessed, trying to be as gentle as possible with Serenity.
Even Caitlin was scared to see her sister – she was afraid that she would injure her fragile feet, too.
And all I could think about was how it was going to affect our daughter – what did it mean for her? Would she be able to walk in the future? Did
