Apparently this whole surgery thing doesn't really lend itself to a lot of regular updates. At least, not for now. Nothing has really changed in the past few weeks, but I have learned a little more about what I can expect and hope. Much of that has to do with my awesome mom having the gusto to call up my doctor with a long list of questions prepared to ask him, since I'm either too lazy or too in denial to do it myself. I think when my doctor initially told me I needed the surgery I was too shocked and worried about dealing with it emotionally to think of any practical questions about the procedure, so it's a good thing we're starting to find some of those things outs. So you want to know what she learned? Lovely.
For one thing, the doctor will be using a posterior approach on me. That means he'll use a long vertical cut along my spine through the back. There are three ways scoliosis surgery is typically done, either through the front, the side, or the back. I'm glad he's going through the back because to me it seems like the most direct and obvious way to get to a spine. I'm all for doing the obvious. Obvious = logical.
Dr. Bacon still isn't sure whether they're going to try to correct both my curves or just the top one. The top one is the one that poses more of a threat to my overall health, so if they can correct it significantly enough, they might not do anything to the bottom one. The good thing about this would be that I wouldn't experience the limitation to my mobility that I would if they put rods in for both curves. The bad thing about this would be that it leaves the possibility open for having to have another surgery later in life to correct the bottom one. I'm undecided about which option sounds more appealing. Please feel free to cast your vote in the comments section.
One awesome thing my mom found out was about my activity post-surgery. When Dr. Bacon told me I'd be in the hospital for a week or two and out of work for two months, I took that to mean that I'd be completely bedridden for quite a while and that I'd be using a big portion of that time slowly trying to get myself up and walking. That is sort of true; it is going to be slow and painful. But apparently the very day after surgery I will be up and walking at least a few minutes a day and will have to try to walk more and more each day. The goal is to be able to walk two miles two weeks after my surgery. I'm very relieved about this, especially because being able to take a few steps from my hospital bed to the bathroom the day after my surgery and all ensuing days sounds much better than what the alternative would be.
As far as what degree of correction we can expect, we still don't really know a specific number to hope for. Obviously they can't make it perfectly straight, but they do expect to get it straight enough that my shoulders will be even with each other and my internal organs will be free from excessive strain. We also found out they plan to fully correct the twisting of my spine, which means I won't have my Quasimodo right shoulder blade protrusion that I hate so much. Yay for that. I forgot to mention earlier that this straightening will result in my being an inch or two taller. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it makes my chances of becoming a runway supermodel a lot higher; on the other, it eliminates two inches' worth of the male population from my possible dating pool. Hmmm.
Obviously there will be a lot to work on physically once I have my surgery as far as trying to recuperate and get myself able to do active things again. Right now, though, I'm finding myself much more concerned about how it's going to affect other things going on in my life. Being out of work for two months is certainly not going to be the best thing for my financial situation, and probably won't be too enjoyable for my office either. The contract for the apartment I live in right now runs out at the end of August, so in addition to trying to recover from surgery I'll have to somehow get moved to a new place. I'd been hoping to move to Salt Lake in August but with this in the picture now it's looking like I might have to postpone those plans. I also had planned to try to go on a trip somewhere this summer (specifically, this weekend) since I haven't had a vacation since I went home for Christmas, but now my vacation will have to be a thrilling trip to the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. I've grown really used to living alone and doing everything for myself and being pretty independent, and I think it's going to be hard to go back to needing others so much for basic things.
All that being said, I realize that I am extremely fortunate in that I have such incredible family and friends who are, without hesitation, willing to help me get through all the unpleasantries of moving and being broke and being generally helpless for a month or two. I know that all those things I just complained about are going to turn out fine, and that I will be well taken care of and will not have to really worry myself about much besides getting better. I'm really, really grateful for that. This whole thing would be exponentially worse if I didn't have such wonderful help getting through it. So, thanks guys. And by "guys" I mostly mean "Mom," but there are a lot more of you who I know are going to do more than a fair share of niceties for me as well. Thank you in advance for that. Really.
Also, I hope everyone knows that the runway supermodel thing was a joke. Sadly, the dating pool thing wasn't.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
a day in the life
A friend just asked what kind of effects my scoliosis causes besides back pain. She probably wasn't hoping for answer quite so thorough as this; nevertheless:
The worst possible result of my curve progressing too much would be that on a long-term scale, my heart, lungs, and other internal organs would receive continuous stress due to being compressed into a smaller space than what their DNA tells them they should have. As you might guess, hearts and lungs don't like this. They couldn't stay in optimal health under such conditions, and apparently keeping your heart and lungs healthy is sort of important, so getting the surgery to straighten my spine will be a big breath of relief for them (literally, on the part of the lungs).
Aesthetically speaking, the worse the scoliosis gets, the worse I would look. As of now my right shoulder is about an inch higher than my left. If it were allowed to get much worse, I would start to become more obviously bent over. Because in addition to being curved my spine is also rotated, my right shoulder blade sticks out a lot further than my left. I'm usually pretty careful to not have pictures taken of that side of me, or I look slightly humpback-esque. My crookedness is not usually very conspicuous, but there are a few places where it always gets noticed. Any time I'm getting my hair cut the hairdresser tries to get me to "sit straight" a couple times before they'll be convinced that I really am as straight as I can be. Same thing with getting my picture taken. It's annoying sometimes that clothes never fit exactly right, but they can hardly be expected to, consdering what they have to work with. For my senior prom I actually had a tailor make a dress that was altered to compensate for my higher right shoulder, so looking at me I looked more even on both sides. That was nice of the tailor.
The bigger problem with the crookedness would be that the worse it got, the more difficulty I'd have with mobility and my range of motion. I think that was redundant. If I didn't fix it now, I'd have a hard time doing basic things like walking and getting around on my own later in my life. I really enjoy walking. It's something I'd like to always be able to do.
So, even though most days I don't really notice my scoliosis, the truth is that it is slowly and steadily becoming more of a hazard to my overall well-being, and if I want to stay as healthy and happy as I feel now, this definitely needs to get fixed. Luckily I live in a time and place where that's actually an option.
The worst possible result of my curve progressing too much would be that on a long-term scale, my heart, lungs, and other internal organs would receive continuous stress due to being compressed into a smaller space than what their DNA tells them they should have. As you might guess, hearts and lungs don't like this. They couldn't stay in optimal health under such conditions, and apparently keeping your heart and lungs healthy is sort of important, so getting the surgery to straighten my spine will be a big breath of relief for them (literally, on the part of the lungs).
Aesthetically speaking, the worse the scoliosis gets, the worse I would look. As of now my right shoulder is about an inch higher than my left. If it were allowed to get much worse, I would start to become more obviously bent over. Because in addition to being curved my spine is also rotated, my right shoulder blade sticks out a lot further than my left. I'm usually pretty careful to not have pictures taken of that side of me, or I look slightly humpback-esque. My crookedness is not usually very conspicuous, but there are a few places where it always gets noticed. Any time I'm getting my hair cut the hairdresser tries to get me to "sit straight" a couple times before they'll be convinced that I really am as straight as I can be. Same thing with getting my picture taken. It's annoying sometimes that clothes never fit exactly right, but they can hardly be expected to, consdering what they have to work with. For my senior prom I actually had a tailor make a dress that was altered to compensate for my higher right shoulder, so looking at me I looked more even on both sides. That was nice of the tailor.
The bigger problem with the crookedness would be that the worse it got, the more difficulty I'd have with mobility and my range of motion. I think that was redundant. If I didn't fix it now, I'd have a hard time doing basic things like walking and getting around on my own later in my life. I really enjoy walking. It's something I'd like to always be able to do.
So, even though most days I don't really notice my scoliosis, the truth is that it is slowly and steadily becoming more of a hazard to my overall well-being, and if I want to stay as healthy and happy as I feel now, this definitely needs to get fixed. Luckily I live in a time and place where that's actually an option.
Friday, June 15, 2007
I'm looking through you
To add a visual, I thought I'd put up a picture of the spine in question. This is actually the x-ray from a few years ago, so add about ten degrees of curvature to both halves of the S, and you get how I am today.
In addition, you get a lovely view of the blossoms outside my window. Bonus!
In addition, you get a lovely view of the blossoms outside my window. Bonus!
the long and winding road
First, for anyone who may be reading this and just learning for the first time about my jacked up spine, a little history:
In sixth grade I had my first scoliosis screening at Eisenhower Elementary School in Leavenworth, Kansas. The main thing I remember about this is how they separated the girls from the boys and how we all uncomfortably giggled about having to take our shirts off for the nurse. We were also supposed to be using the waiting time to work on memorizing the beginning of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. I totally aced the speech memorization--that's an indication of how concerned I was about the possibility of scoliosis. It was a meaningless word to me at that point. I went in to the nurse, bent over, she glanced at my back and put some kind of level on it, declared me to be fine, signed my paper, and sent me back to class. Scoliosis was out of my mind.
Then in seventh grade my family moved to North Carolina. I remember complaining more and more about how my back hurt pretty regularly, and always feeling like I wasn't really taken seriously. After all, how could a little girl who was perfectly healthy and who'd never done any real work in her life have back problems? Please. Fortunately, in North Carolina, they do the scoliosis screenings in seventh grade instead of sixth. So one afternoon we lined up and waited for the nurse and bent over. This time it wasn't so quick. "Hmm." "Could you touch your toes again?" "Hmm." I don't remember what happened between then and my first doctor's appointment, but it happened pretty quickly thereafter.
They first tried to help it by having me wear a lift in my left shoe. The theory was that my off-kilter spine was caused by my left leg being slightly shorter than my right, thus putting my hips out of alignment, causing my back to try to compensate by curving.
This attempt pretty much cracks me up now. This centimeter-thick piece of styrofoam will do the trick! Right.
After a year or so of the shoe lift not doing any good and my curve continuing to progress, they decided to put me in a brace. At least, I think that's what the doctors told me; all I heard was "we've decided to take away your social life and self-esteem." Awesome. The day I went in to have it molded they had to mark some measurements on me, and I was so furious with them for putting red writing all over my new swimsuit with the fish on it. Man, that was a cute swimsuit. Was. Needless to say I was not taking the whole brace thing very well. It was uncomfortable, made me feel ugly, and ruined my favorite swimsuit. Pretty much the trifecta of adolescent suffering.
There was one stroke of luck though--remember the early 90s? Remember how wearing huge oversized t-shirts was totally fashionable? Good thing. I could wear my brace to school under my XXL Marvin the Martian t-shirt and not be too extremely conspicuous. I also quickly learned that the more okay and confident I felt in my brace, the more normal it was to my friends and peers. It was fun to be the tough girl who'd have all the boys in Mr. Eldridge's North Carolina History class try to punch her and only get their hands hurt. I liked tapping out beats on my plastic abs on the way to soccer practice with my friends. It wasn't really so bad.
Unfortunately, it also wasn't really so helpful.
Flash forward a couple years. I'm sixteen, no longer growing, and thus no longer required to wear my brace. My curve has progressed some over the past few years, but seems to have stabilized. I'm at about 55° on top, 43° on bottom. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention, I have an S curve. Some scoliosis just curves one way or the other, but mine has two curves in opposite directions. Like... an S. I'm at the point now where I'm not growing, apparently my spine isn't getting any worse, I'm not quite bad enough to need surgery, and I seem to be totally functional and healthy with the exception of regular back pain. But, you know, that's normal right? For me both then and now it just seems like part of living is that backs hurt. Please don't rub it in my face that the same may not be true for everyone =) It's easier thinking that it's normal.
So, what was I saying? Not growing. Not worsening. Basically fine. Awesome. I was left with instructions to get it checked every couple of years to make sure it was staying the same, and as long as it did, I'd be fine. No worries about health problems or long-term effects. I was completely happy with this conclusion.
As agreed, I got my back x-rayed every few years. No change at 17. No change at 18. No change at 20. I figured I was done.
Then a few weeks ago my mom convinced me I needed to get an x-ray again. It had been three years since my last x-ray and it's always good to just know for sure that I'm still okay. It would be a good time to take advantage of the insurance I have and just get it checked. So I set up the appointment, got the x-ray, looked at it and tried to determine whether it was different or not from my last one, gave up trying, and decided to just wait and see what the doctor said. On June 13th I had my first appointment with Dr. Bacon, who took one look at my back and said "why didn't they fix this five or six years ago?" Uh-oh. I didn't like where that was heading.
It turns out that in the past few years my curves have progressed (but not the right curves). The top one is now about 65° and the bottom one about 55°. That's it. Surgery. There's not really a question anymore. So on August 6th, 2007, I will be straightened. There is a whole lot that I think and feel and wonder and worry about this, but I will have to write about those things later. It's already been way too long of an entry just telling the story up to this point. Stay tuned for further updates on the saga of my crooked back. Also, I hope you enjoyed the double meaning of the title of this post, because personally I think it was a pretty awesome choice =) Ta.
In sixth grade I had my first scoliosis screening at Eisenhower Elementary School in Leavenworth, Kansas. The main thing I remember about this is how they separated the girls from the boys and how we all uncomfortably giggled about having to take our shirts off for the nurse. We were also supposed to be using the waiting time to work on memorizing the beginning of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. I totally aced the speech memorization--that's an indication of how concerned I was about the possibility of scoliosis. It was a meaningless word to me at that point. I went in to the nurse, bent over, she glanced at my back and put some kind of level on it, declared me to be fine, signed my paper, and sent me back to class. Scoliosis was out of my mind.
Then in seventh grade my family moved to North Carolina. I remember complaining more and more about how my back hurt pretty regularly, and always feeling like I wasn't really taken seriously. After all, how could a little girl who was perfectly healthy and who'd never done any real work in her life have back problems? Please. Fortunately, in North Carolina, they do the scoliosis screenings in seventh grade instead of sixth. So one afternoon we lined up and waited for the nurse and bent over. This time it wasn't so quick. "Hmm." "Could you touch your toes again?" "Hmm." I don't remember what happened between then and my first doctor's appointment, but it happened pretty quickly thereafter.
They first tried to help it by having me wear a lift in my left shoe. The theory was that my off-kilter spine was caused by my left leg being slightly shorter than my right, thus putting my hips out of alignment, causing my back to try to compensate by curving.
This attempt pretty much cracks me up now. This centimeter-thick piece of styrofoam will do the trick! Right.
After a year or so of the shoe lift not doing any good and my curve continuing to progress, they decided to put me in a brace. At least, I think that's what the doctors told me; all I heard was "we've decided to take away your social life and self-esteem." Awesome. The day I went in to have it molded they had to mark some measurements on me, and I was so furious with them for putting red writing all over my new swimsuit with the fish on it. Man, that was a cute swimsuit. Was. Needless to say I was not taking the whole brace thing very well. It was uncomfortable, made me feel ugly, and ruined my favorite swimsuit. Pretty much the trifecta of adolescent suffering.
There was one stroke of luck though--remember the early 90s? Remember how wearing huge oversized t-shirts was totally fashionable? Good thing. I could wear my brace to school under my XXL Marvin the Martian t-shirt and not be too extremely conspicuous. I also quickly learned that the more okay and confident I felt in my brace, the more normal it was to my friends and peers. It was fun to be the tough girl who'd have all the boys in Mr. Eldridge's North Carolina History class try to punch her and only get their hands hurt. I liked tapping out beats on my plastic abs on the way to soccer practice with my friends. It wasn't really so bad.
Unfortunately, it also wasn't really so helpful.
Flash forward a couple years. I'm sixteen, no longer growing, and thus no longer required to wear my brace. My curve has progressed some over the past few years, but seems to have stabilized. I'm at about 55° on top, 43° on bottom. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention, I have an S curve. Some scoliosis just curves one way or the other, but mine has two curves in opposite directions. Like... an S. I'm at the point now where I'm not growing, apparently my spine isn't getting any worse, I'm not quite bad enough to need surgery, and I seem to be totally functional and healthy with the exception of regular back pain. But, you know, that's normal right? For me both then and now it just seems like part of living is that backs hurt. Please don't rub it in my face that the same may not be true for everyone =) It's easier thinking that it's normal.
So, what was I saying? Not growing. Not worsening. Basically fine. Awesome. I was left with instructions to get it checked every couple of years to make sure it was staying the same, and as long as it did, I'd be fine. No worries about health problems or long-term effects. I was completely happy with this conclusion.
As agreed, I got my back x-rayed every few years. No change at 17. No change at 18. No change at 20. I figured I was done.
Then a few weeks ago my mom convinced me I needed to get an x-ray again. It had been three years since my last x-ray and it's always good to just know for sure that I'm still okay. It would be a good time to take advantage of the insurance I have and just get it checked. So I set up the appointment, got the x-ray, looked at it and tried to determine whether it was different or not from my last one, gave up trying, and decided to just wait and see what the doctor said. On June 13th I had my first appointment with Dr. Bacon, who took one look at my back and said "why didn't they fix this five or six years ago?" Uh-oh. I didn't like where that was heading.
It turns out that in the past few years my curves have progressed (but not the right curves). The top one is now about 65° and the bottom one about 55°. That's it. Surgery. There's not really a question anymore. So on August 6th, 2007, I will be straightened. There is a whole lot that I think and feel and wonder and worry about this, but I will have to write about those things later. It's already been way too long of an entry just telling the story up to this point. Stay tuned for further updates on the saga of my crooked back. Also, I hope you enjoyed the double meaning of the title of this post, because personally I think it was a pretty awesome choice =) Ta.
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