Scoliosis and Surgery, A story time moment that has as good of a happy ending as any

As a child, I was chubby. I think this is a good time as any to get that out of the way.
Not obese, just chubby, but that ‘just chubby’ happened to be enough to hide under rolls of seemingly inoffensive fat the fact that my spine was, actually, curved. We happened upon the discovery by accident, and that is something I am never going to be able to forget- I had pulled a muscle at 16 when starting to work out, when I started to finally take care of my sugar problems, but when the X Rays came in and the doctor’s face became slack, the pain of my back, although completely unrelated to the obviously curved spine reflected on the paper, was just but a slight tickle in comparison to what would come later on.
I didn’t grow up with this condition like many others did, so my Mother, that strong woman sitting beside me in the doctor’s office, was not prepared for the words “She is not suitable for the corset, and she has to have surgery”. I, on the other hand, was not prepared for what it meant. After some time it became clear to me that it wasn’t about the screws or bars that they could potentially put on my back, it was not about the very large scar, because I didn’t really mind the thought of it, instead, it was all about how much it hurt to do anything. It hurt to walk up the stairs, it hurt to sit straight, it hurt to stand up for prolonged periods of times, it hurt to jump, it hurt to play sports, it hurt to walk too much, it hurt to be anywhere near a rainy day. I can’t say it didn’t hurt to breathe, because I am sure that happened more than a handful of times.
I was in therapy for almost four years. Started to lose the weight that I needed both for the sake of my pancreas and for the sake of at least reducing the pain that I had to go through anyway, and by the time I was 17 I had “Good days” and “Days that weren’t that good”- It’s pointless, you see, to label a day as bad, if it happened to be how you perceived your everyday. I was already in pain, I didn’t have to be miserable about it too. It was enough with the fact that the stronger I got, the more it hurt.
But perhaps, worse than the pain, was the frustration. By the time I was halfway through my first semester at University, all of my classmates knew rainy days were painful days. They knew that if the lift/elevator was not working and we all had to walk of the mere four floors to our classrooms, I was going to be in pain all day. They knew that if I happened to fall on my lower behind, I was most probably going to need help to stand up again. It was the frustration of having to ask help at everything, of spending half of my time in bed and the other half taking pain meds that stopped working after two weeks, that made me ask for surgery more than once. “You are not old enough” was the answer I usually got, “You have not stopped growing yet” was the main concern.
“We do not have the money” was main obstacle.
I come from Venezuela, that country with tons of Oil and a stupid enough government to have the worst administration the world has ever seen for about 20 years. It is not a secret we are in a deep, revolting economic crisis, and it’s not a secret we have been in one since quite a couple of years ago. Then I developed an Hernia on the lower part of my spine and I all but argued my way into the opening of a Go Found Me campaign.
Long story short, four days before my 20th birthday, I was being kept company by my mother and two dear friends in the waiting room. I remember everyone saying “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay” and then me laughing, grinning, and answering “Why, of course everything is going to be okay, I know that. It’s the reason I am not worried at all”. I was never nervous about it, not even when the first needle got into my skin, or when my surgeon strolled in and patted my knee- As a doctor, my dad was allowed to go in with me, and the last words I said before everything went pitch black, was a “See you later!” to him.
I am going to go right ahead and say right here right now, that the recovery was a stroll in the park.
When you spend more than half of your time in bed, whining in pain, with your dog crying for you by your bedside, standing up from the first time with 19 screws, 3 crosslinks, and 2 bars on your back could be surprisingly easy. I walked, I laughed, I slept, I ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted for my five days in the hospital, and when I came back home I went behind my mother’s back now two days later to start getting up the bed myself, and going to the bathroom without someone hovering over my shoulder- When you can flush down the toilet by yourself, you know you are going to be alright.
I went to therapy, I worked to fix the pain on my leg due to a nerve that had been previously been pressed by the odd angle of my spine, I cut my hair, and the last time I ever took a pill for something related to my back was an antibiotic. I don’t use the lift/elevator, I walk my dog every day, I go to the gym every day, I do so many things I could use a couple more hours on a day to get them all done in time, and I got a tattoo; perks of scoliosis surgery? You kind of loss sensibility for quite a while, perfect time to get a tattoo, or to laugh at people when they complaint he weather is ‘Too cold’
Is the scar big? Oh yes, absolutely. Larger than my arm, lighter by the day, an excellent topic of conversation when people on the street stare at it for too long.
Do I regret getting surgery? I would first regret being born.
Down sides of it? Well, I cannot tell when it’s going to rain anymore. I have been able to live without doing so, though.
Also, now I am taller than my dad. I am pretty sure I am going to get disowned for that, but hey, at least now I don’t have to wear heels, which is in overall a very good thing, if I may say so myself.