Hi I’m Katelyn. I am 14 years old. I found out I had scoliosis in August of 2004.

I went to my pediatrician for a physical. Towards the end of the physical the doctor asked me to bend down and touch my toes. Immediately after I bent down she asked my mom, “You know she has Scoliosis, right?” Neither my mom nor I had known and it came as a pretty big surprise to us. The pediatrician referred us to a doctor who specialized in all sorts of bone related things. He saw people who had broken arms, people with Scoli, and people with almost anything else you can think of that is a bone related problem. He showed me a brace and said that I would probably need one. After a few visits to him he sent me to my current orthopedic doctor who specializes in scoliosis and sees only children. At my first visit to him, he wrote a prescription for a Boston brace and physical therapy.

About a week later I went to see Ron, the ‘brace guy.’ He is very friendly and happy to answer any of my questions. He had me change into the tube like piece of fabric with holes for my arms and for my head. It fit really tight to my body. He took all sorts of measurements before I left and told us they would be sent off to Boston where they would make a molding thing of my brace. He said once it came in I would come back to him and he would cut out everything he needed so it would fit me and my curves just right.

Physical therapy started twice a week before I got my brace. I must have/still am in pretty bad shape because all the exercises were awfully hard for me. While I was still in physical therapy my brace came in.

I worked into my brace, wearing it an hour or two more each day until I had it on 23/7. My physical therapist showed me exercises I could do while wearing my brace. I hated physical therapy and couldn’t wait for it to be over. It didn’t seem to be helping me so I stopped going about a week shorter then the doctor. had prescribed.

I go to Ron about every two months. Usually he changes something on my brace each visit.

In August 2005 I visited the doctor with some x- rays in hand. After reading them he told me that even though my brace has slowed the growth of my curve it didn’t stop it and it would be a wise idea to have surgery. He said it wasn’t something I’d have to hurry into but a good idea once I was done with the majority of my growing.

I was pretty discouraged about this because I had put up with brace for about seven months. Now that I think about it, it really wasn’t that bad. My friends are all very supportive of me. If they know I’m not wearing it they tell me to put it on and offer to help me tighten it. One if them came up with the idea of it being my ‘rock hard abs.’ But without even realizing it, I started taking my brace off longer each day and even having a snappy attitude.

For about two months after finding out I’d need surgery I acted bad towards the brace. I finally realized that even though it hadn’t stopped my curve, it bought me some time before I’d need surgery and it kept my curve from getting to a degree that would be awful hard to fix.

Then my Mom thought it would be a good idea if I had some people to talk to that I could relate to. I wasn’t crazy about the idea at all. Finally she showed me SpineKIDS and made me a username. While not talking much at first I talk on the SpineKIDS message boards a whole lot now. SpineKIDS is usually on the bottom whenever my computer is on so I can pull up the page and check out new threads.

I had never realized so many other kids had Scoliosis. They are all happy and think positively. Just because you have Scoli, you aren’t less of a person or anything. I don’t even hide my brace like I used to. Now I wear it over my clothes. Sometimes people ask me questions about it, and it does get annoying but its something you get used to I guess. I’ve even had people ask me if I broke my back and if it’s my cast!!

I plan on having a spinal fusion in the summer so I won’t have to miss any school for it. I’ll keep this updated on the way to it and afterwards too.

Update - July 18, 2006

I grew out of my brace and was going to get a new one. I got fitted for it and chose a design and everything but then the insurance company wouldn’t pay for it since I was going to have surgery soon.

I had wanted to wait until the summer to have the surgery done because I didn’t want to miss a lot of school. But since I didn’t get a new brace I ended up having it on April 6th. My curve was up to 60 degrees now.

On the day of surgery I got to the hospital at 6:15 in the morning. My mom had to sign a few forms but most of the paperwork had already been done so we went upstairs and waited to go into the pre op room. Once I was called back to the pre op room I saw lots of different people. They were all making sure I was healthy and explaining things to me. Around 7:30 my surgeon came into talk to me and about ten minutes later so did the anesthesia guy. I left for the OR at 8:00. I don’t remember much after that but the room was really cold and there were x-rays on all the walls. My mom says she got three calls from a nurse while I was in surgery. The first one was at 11:30 and they were starting the implants. At 1:30 they called to say the implants were done. And they called once more at 3:40 to tell her the surgery was done. My parents met with my surgeon around 4:15 and he told them he thought he got my curve down to 15 degrees. After I woke up in recovery I was taken to the ICU.

The next day I was given ice chips, juice, and Sprite. (When my doctor found out about the Sprite he wasn’t very happy about it.) I was log rolled every 2 hours. I remember the drains in my back both bothered me when I laid on them so I would bug the nurse to roll me early. That afternoon I was moved to a regular room. I had a temperature and was given Tylenol for it and my surgeon stopped by in the late afternoon.

My third day in the hospital I slept a lot, ate tons of ice chips, sat in a chair twice, watched a DVD from my bed, drank some apple juice and lemonade, and had both drains removed. Some residents removed the superficial drain and it hurt but my surgeon removed the deep drain and I barely felt it. I had low hemoglobin at 7.7 but my surgeon wanted to wait to give me blood if it didn’t go up by the next day.

The next day I had more ice chips, jello, soup, and pudding. I sat in a chair long enough to watch a whole DVD, rode in a wheelchair for a change of scenery and started taking the pain medicine by mouth. My IV came out that day so I had to wait up late until the person who starts them could come and start a new one for me.

My last day in the hospital the dressing on my incision was changed and my catheter was removed. I walked to the door and ate cereal, grapes, and apple juice. I started walking the halls and had to go down for x-rays. When my surgeon came he said I was free to go.

Well thanks for taking the time to read this! Bye!

     
April 2006 - Pre Surgery                                          August 2006 - Post Surgery

Post Surgery Xray

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