A precocious nine year old with long brown hair and dark brown eyes, I always had a knee scraped and loved to be outside; I played rec soccer and read Harry Potter eight times through for fun; I was a relatively normal third grader with only third grade problems. But in that spring of 2005 I began to have regular headaches. Slightly worried, my mom brought me to the pediatrician who decided I needed glasses and soon enough the headaches ceased. However, at this same appointment the doctor decided to do a routine check for scoliosis.
"Bend down and touch your toes." I've been told so many times now I don't even have to be asked anymore.
But as a nine year old I complied, and when she found a curve she advised an appointment at Children's Hospital in Washington D.C. The walls in the waiting room were white, the smell was starch and filled with cleaning supplies. The place was scary and foreboding, despite the colorful pictures tacked on the walls. Nine year old me looked up at my dad, holding my hand and asked what would happen to me.
Reassuringly he answered, "A few x-rays at worst."
Boy was he wrong.
The upper curve was 48, the lower 36. I wore three braces from 2005-2008 over the puberty years that stopped the curve from getting worse and even made it better for a while (at one point I was at 36 upper and 24 lower), but in the years since I've been out of the brace the curves have been progressively getting worse and now I have a 54 upper and 38 lower. I've been threatened with surgery and spinal fusion multiple times. But as a multi-sport varsity athlete I do love my mobility, and that is what has brought me to the CLEAR Institute, looking for any option other than surgery: an option to prove that scoliosis doesn't define me and nothing else is going to tell me how to live my life.
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