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Conf Scolio

This document is a first-person account of living with scoliosis. The narrator describes discovering they had scoliosis in 8th grade after an x-ray revealed a curved spine. Their scoliosis progressed over six months, leading doctors to recommend surgery, but they opted for a back brace instead. The brace is painful and restrictive, limiting breathing, eating, exercise and activities. While scoliosis impacts them physically, mentally and emotionally, the narrator finds ways to manage their health through an eating schedule, physical therapy and swimming. They encourage others with scoliosis to take care of their health and not give up.

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58 views

Conf Scolio

This document is a first-person account of living with scoliosis. The narrator describes discovering they had scoliosis in 8th grade after an x-ray revealed a curved spine. Their scoliosis progressed over six months, leading doctors to recommend surgery, but they opted for a back brace instead. The brace is painful and restrictive, limiting breathing, eating, exercise and activities. While scoliosis impacts them physically, mentally and emotionally, the narrator finds ways to manage their health through an eating schedule, physical therapy and swimming. They encourage others with scoliosis to take care of their health and not give up.

Uploaded by

MINt Kookie
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CONFESSIONS OF A PERSON WITH SCOLIOSIS:

A Story Straight Out of A Curved Spine

Here’s the deal – having scoliosis is so not easy. It’s painful, tormenting, and frankly suffocating.
Although all these might be an exaggeration to you, trust me when I say that when your spine looks like
the letter S, I am not exaggerating. Scoliosis hurts not just your physical well-being but also your
emotional and mental state, which in turn jeopardizes your health and wellness.

Let me enlighten you; Scoliosis is a disorder in which there is a sideways curve of the spine, or
backbone. Curves are often S-shaped or C-shaped. In most people, there is no known cause for this
curve. No known cause. It just happens to you like some cruel lottery that chooses a person to be given
this disorder. Unfortunately for me, I am one of those people who has idiopathic scoliosis, or basically,
the lucky winner of the lottery. I don’t know why I got my scoliosis, it doesn’t run in our family nor have I
been in any major accidents in my life, but it just kind of appeared out of nowhere like, surprise! You’re
now a teen; here, have some scoliosis!

Anyway, I have always experienced backaches but of course this occurs whenever I slouch too
much. I’d never had backaches for no reason whatsoever. I first discovered that I have scoliosis when I
was in 8th grade. I had a bad case of cough so my pediatrician advised me to have my chest x-rayed to
check for pneumonia. Fortunately, when the x-ray was found, I had no pneumonia; what I got instead
was something I’d never expected to see; a picture of a bended spine (way to make a trade, life). The
orthopedist advised me to wait six more months to see if it would worsen (There’s a chance it might not,
you see) so I waited. After six months, I was utterly betrayed by my backbone because it did worsen, a
lot. By the end of six months, I was already advised for surgery. My parents and I thought that it wasn’t
an option (I’m scared to death of surgery) and we chose the back brace instead. Then, the suffering
began.

Remember when I told you that scoliosis gives you pain and torment? This is because of the
back brace. You see, the brace is extremely hard and it has belts and paddings that go around your torso
which is tightened every three months. This padding pushes or pulls your muscles in hope that your
spine might follow suit. Let me tell you, wearing the brace is no joke. It’s like ropes wrapping around
your body. And remember it’s tightened every three months! Remember when I said that it jeopardizes
my physical well-being? It does so because when you have scoliosis, you are now limited in physical
activities whether you like it or not. I mean, I’m not the type who likes sweating a lot but I do play sports
in school and exercise from time to time. Well, used to. Because of this, my body barely gets the exercise
it needs. Sure, I could just push through and jog or something but the truth is, I can’t. The belts and
paddings wrapping around my body restricts the amount of air I breathe, causing early shortage of
breath. Also, the brace has a waist guard that goes up to your stomach, pushing it down. Because this
hard piece of plastic is basically pressed up against my stomach, I can’t eat much without having
difficulties in breathing. Like really, if I didn’t eat much before, I certainly am not eating any more now.
This results to me not eating enough food to provide enough calories to sustain me for a day.
It also hurts the emotional state because let’s face it, unless I undergo surgery, I’ll be stuck with
a slightly (I hope) bent spine for life, and that’s just sad. Also, the idea that you can’t spend your
childhood and youth the way you want to is also devastating. You can’t do a lot of things, and the things
that you can do, well it hurts doing that after a few hours. Sitting and standing are examples of this. Also,
all the staring is like an uppercut to your self-confidence. Yes, the staring; people are not used to seeing
other people with metal ends sticking on the top of their t-shirts. It can be embarrassing sometimes but
all the support from my family members help boost up your morale.

It’s not all bad though, there are ways in which I could still keep my good health and deal with
my scoliosis. For example, my mom and I came up with an eating schedule in which I eat at a few hours’
interval so that I could still eat a lot, just gradually to make room for digestion. Unfortunately, this
schedule doesn’t work while I’m in school but we’re working on it. Also, thanks to physical therapy and
swimming (It’s the only sport that’s allowed for me) I am also able to perform exercises that benefit my
whole body and my spine; exercises that’s just for me (cool right?).

For me, scoliosis is not only a disorder for the bone, but a disorder that affects the whole body.
It jeopardizes your wellness and state of fitness which can have negative effects in the long run. The
advice I could give to the people with scoliosis out there who can relate to this is that don’t give up; it’s
just going to get harder if you do. Also, take very good care of your health, it’s fragile and it’s vital that
you do so. Also if you’re like me who terrified of scalpels and the like, even though it hurts, try to stick to
your best friend (Just kidding), the brace, because it does help you. But as I mention, like any other type
of cure, it has its side effects so find a way to work around it. Don’t mind people that tell you you’re less
awesome than you think you are because it isn’t true. In the end, we bent-spine-people must stick
together and together we will overcome this hurdle in life.

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