Hi, my name is Jodie, I'm 14 years old and I had scoliosis, I first noticed something was wrong around about last christmas (2004) time but we didn’t think anything of it we just put it down to growing up.

Finally in May we got quite worried because it was getting worse, so mum took me to the doctors and staight away. She told me I had severe scoliosis so she referred me the hospital. I saw one doctor there who couldn’t help me because mine was too complicated. So he referred me to Mr. Harrison where I got xrays and it showed that I had one curve of almost 90 degrees and another compensatery curve of 53 degrees. Also my spine twisted around called a lateral twist and he told me that I had to have surgery.

I saw him twice after that to check things and finally in August of 2005, I had my first operation. In this one, what they had to do was take a rib out and deflate my lung, then they undid each of my vertibrae in my spine that left me paralized for a week. Then they did the second operation where they removed some of my vertibrae and straightend my spine out and put in the screws and rods.

After that I couldn’t walk for a further 3 days. Then on the 4th day they made me a brace so it could support my spine as I couldn’t do it myself yet. I got up and it was soo weird, I felt like a weighed a ton and my legs wouldn’t move. I had to lay back down after about 5 mins the next day we did a little more and then the next and the next when finally I was ready to go home.

When I got home it was really weird I coulnd really do any anything except eat and sleep lol but I measured myself and I had gone from 5'1" to 5'4" so now I was as tall as my mum (yay). At the beginning it was really difficult at home as I was in a lot of pain but now I am doing better.

I'ts been two months since I came out of hospital and although it doesn’t seem a long time I have improved soo much. I still have the compensatory curve but its slowly going, after a while it will go completely . I still have to waer the brace but I can go with out it for a while, Mr. Harrison said I can get it off in 4 weeks, so I'm looking forward to that. I am so pleased with my progress and I can do a little more each day I hope you find my story interseting

Here's a photo of my back after surgery:

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