Hello! I'm Jade. I'm 14 years old and a freshman. I have brown hair and blue eyes, and had posterior spinal fusion January 19th, 2004.

When we first discovered I had scoliosis, I was at my pediatricians office for my sports physical and my 9th grade check-up. The doctor first noticed something was wrong when I was getting my height and weight, because I was standing weird. When he came into the office he told me to stand up and bend over, he traced along my spine and told my dad I had scoliosis. He explained everything to us, and told us that we needed to see a specialist. So on August 23rd we went to go get x-rays.

The doctor at wherever I was (I went once, I don't remember) had me bend over and do the same examenation as my other doctor did. She said that she thought I had a moderate curve, but sent me to get x-rays just to make sure. When the x-rays came back she said that the curves were worse than she thought, and that we should just skip the orthopaedic specialist and go see a surgeon, so we were referred to Rush Presbyterian and St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.

That appointment was on October 1st. I had additional x-rays, and we brought in my previous one. The first x-ray I had, my curves were about 38 and 43 (I think), but in the x-rays they had taken, my curves were about 40 and 48, so they were increasing somewhat fast. Dr. DeWald said that surgery was probably my best option since my curves were increasing so fast, and since they were nearing 50 degrees. So that's what we decided to do!

My surgery was scheduled for January 19th, 2004. We woke up (well, my parents woke up, I was already ready lol) at about 2AM so we could be at Rush by 4AM. They had me change into the gown, put on some leggings, and socks with traction. Then I was sent into a room where people wait before their surgery, and layed down on the hospital bed. My other doctor came in and talked to me and my parents, then the neurologist came in, and started hooking me up to the wires, and the anestiesiologists came in, but when they told me they were going to put the IV in, I started crying (hard) so they gave me some gross tasting medicine to calm me down, then when that didn't work they decided to use a mask. After I said good-bye to everyone, I was wheeled into the OR, after the mask I don't remember anything until I woke up in recovery.

I woke up in recovery two times, but fell asleep 2 seconds afterwards, all I remember was getting oxygen tubes and seeing a bag of blood (I ended up needing both of the two units I gave). Then, I woke up in PICU. I kept asking for something to drink because my mouth was super dry, so they gave me a cup of ice chips and a sponge with a cup of water. I was asleep most of the time in PICU so I don't remember much, with the exception of my morphine being taken off the continuous drip.

The orthopaedic unit wasn't too bad, I got two massages, so that was cool! My doctors had me up and walking pretty soon, which was weird to do at first. But eventually I got the hang of it and went for walks down the hall occasionally. The ride home was uncomfortable, I was adjusting my seat every minute for the two hour ride home, which wasn't fun!

Recovery wasn't bad at all. The first week was really uncomfortable, I had my dad adjust my pillows, and I didn't want to get up and walk, even though I did after awhile. Pretty soon I was only taking my medication once in the morning, and sitting up more than I was laying down. 2 weeks after, I went to my school mixer! So that kind of gives you the idea of how fast recovery was for me. I started doing school 4 weeks after, now it's been 6 and I'm already doing full days!

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