Hi, my name is Mihai and I'm 16 years old. I am from Romania but have lived here basically all my life.

I was diagnosed with having scoliosis in the 2nd grade. From the 2nd grade till the 9th grade I wore three different types of back braces to help prevent the increasing of my curve. Later on I found out that I actually had what they call and S-curve which meant that I had and upper curve and a lower curve. The upper curve was less intense but the lower curve was the one that was predicted to get worse.

As time passed I kept outgrowing diffrent braces and getting new ones. I was really hard to accomodate the brace to my back because of my prosthetic leg on my right foot. One time we decided to try to make a brace with my prosthesist because he has had past experiences in back braces. After wearing that brace for a year my curved jumped from a 33 to a 45. We were a little concerned that the brace was not made right and decided to make a brace with the people over at Duke where I was getting treated for my scoliosis. I wore a brace and went back in 6 months for a check-up but it turned out that it was a little too late to wear a brace anymore because my curve had jumped to 51 degrees.

The doctor I had been seeing all along was Dr. Fitch who was a great guy and had been doing scoliosis surgery for over 35 years. My family and I had a talk with him and his nurse about the surgery process and what was to be done before and how life was probably going to be after. I was scheduled to have surgery on March 27, 2006.

Leading up to surgery I was nervous at times and unsure about how this would affect my life at other times. One week before surgery we went in to have a talk with a lady that prepared us for what was going to happen on the day of surgery, she walked us through the hospital and showed us the different places I would be during my stay in the hospital. When I got home that night I felt much more relefied to know what was going to happen.

Finally the big day arrived. I woke up bright and early in the morning and drank nothing but white grape juice as my breakfast. When we got to the hospital they took me in a preparation room were I took off all my clothes and they gave me the beautiful hospital gown that I had to wear during surgery and the great hospital socks that I was to wear during my stay there. They took me out in the waiting room were I met everyone that was going to be in the operating room. Last thing I remeber was something cool going into my arm and then I woke up in the waiting room again asking for crushed ice because my mouth was dry.

My stay in the hospital was a very good one. I slept a lot and walked the corridors with my physical therapist Dora. The day to go home finally came. I was so excited when I got home and could finally sleep in my own bed.

The next couple of weeks that followed were kind of rough because I had lost my appetite and didn't eat much and also the bigger problem was having to go to the Emergency Room because I havent gone to the bathroom in over 1 week and a half. After the first couple of weeks life slowly started coming back to normal. I could walk up and down the staris again by myself, I could take a shower by myself, and I started driving again 2 months after surgery. All in all having the surgery turned out to be a great thing because now I don't have to worry about a brace and I can finally feel my back being straight. I have gotten back into year-around swimming but I still havent gotten back to the level I was before surgery. It has now been 8 months after surgery.

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