Words of Caution to the Reader

If you are family or friends, then you are already aware that my background is in math and the sciences and not composition. If you do not belong to one of those two groups, then you will soon learn the truth about my writing skills (or lack of). It is true that I have moments of verbal clarity but those tend to occur around midnight and quickly taper off. Being that I work full-time as an assistant manager at a software development company AND attend school for a Masters of Business Administration, my being awake at 12am is indeed a rarity. Instead, I foresee much of blogging occurring during my lunch hours or in the early evening.

That said, prepare yourself for incoherent thoughts, not a Pulitzer prize.

My Adversary

My foe goes by one name – Scoliosis. Of course there are moments when I am compelled to include an adjective or two in front of its name. This didn’t use to be the case. Scoliosis joined my vocabulary list when I was a young teen (and it didn’t even help me on the SAT’s!). At a time when kids are exceptionally petty and nasty towards those who are different, I got to wear a body brace of metal and hard plastic that went from my hips to armpits. I wore this contraption as best as I could for 3 years. During that time, the curvatures in my spine remained stable. Great news! Of course, being young and naïve, I thought this was the last I would hear of scoliosis procedures. Unfortunately this wasn’t to be my fate and scoliosis was to rear its ugly head more than a decade later.

Fast forward to the past year…

During regular visits to my PCP, I noticed that my height appeared to be declining. I always knew myself as 5-6.5. Oh how I clung to that half an inch; I knew it was there and by golly I let the world know it. So when the doctor’s office was beginning to measure me at 5-6 and 5-5.5 I began to question their records. My favorite reason from them regarding the height difference was “maybe you were wearing shoes during the previous measurements”. First of all, any female knows that we take off our shoes during our initial weigh-in and height measurement in order to make us weigh as little as possible for our records. Sometimes I even choose my outfit for the day based on this weigh-in. For instance, heavy sweaters are out as they add unnecessary poundage. Secondly, I saw the chart records and next to each height and weight input, the assistant records whether or not the patient was wearing shoes. Shrinking at my age is highly unlikely they’d say, and they must have measured my height incorrectly (but that many times, I’d respond). Well that obviously did not satisfy me…I wanted to know exactly what happened to my .5 inches (which was quickly becoming 1 whole inch!).

Upon discussion of my scoliosis history, my PCP agreed that an xray of my spine was in order and I happily obliged. I reasoned that a baseline of my back was a great idea, not because it would mean anything now but for future it could prove handy. What an incorrect presumption that turned out to be. Before I knew it, my PCP had seen my xray and set up an appointment for me with a local spine specialist. From this well-respected doctor, I learned I would most likely need a spinal fusion surgery at some point, whether it be this year or 15 years from now. Being that my husband and I have a more flexible schedule now (ie. no children) and I am younger and so should heal faster and better, I am seriously considering having this surgery sooner (perhaps within a years time) rather than later. Besides, why let my curve worsen if I can stop it now? I’ve always hated living with my crooked spine, I can’t imagine being at peace with it when its much worse.

The 411? Well the degree of curvature of my right thoracic curve has progressed from 39 degrees to 52 degrees. Okay, not bad. As far as I know the right thoracic curve is very common and at least we’ve caught the curve progression before it became too much worse. But the diagnosis doesn’t stop there. Apparently I have another curve, and though this is somewhat frequent itself, where my second curve is isn’t. Most individuals with a double curve have one curve in the thoracic region (upper back) of the spine and one in the lumbar region (lower). Lucky me has my second curve in the thoracic region above my main thoracic curve, but because it’s so high up it extends into my neck a bit. This doctor’s recommendation is that my spine be fused from the T1 to T11 or T12 vertebrate. This is the entire thoracic region – my bendy (or not so bendy) spine will become one fused bone rather than 12 working units! On the bright side, his recommendation stays clear of the lumbar region which is where most of one’s rotation comes from. For this I am thankful. I’ve never been able to touch my toes and I don’t care if I still can’t after surgery, but I have always been able to twist around and I’d prefer not to have that ability taken away.

Surgery is serious stuff, especially this type of surgery. The spine specialist recommends I get a second and third opinion. Who am I to argue with that, sounds like a great idea! Unfortunately there aren’t any such surgeons in town. Now I’m off to NYC and Atlanta for appointments with adult scoliosis surgeons.

Let the games begin!