A Scoliosis Story When do beginnings start

[Music]

a girl trying on a dress with her mom

seems like a pretty normal situation but

there’s something about that dress

it just didn’t fit right it didn’t look

right

so she wanted her mother to get it

tailored one time

two times three times it reached a point

where the t where the taylor s

asked to see the girl in person

insisting that the measurements just had

to be correct at this point

it’s not the dress mom it’s the girl she

was told

that there wasn’t anything wrong with

the dress but something wrong with her

that girl was me and after meeting with

four different doctors and

three months of failed chirotherapy i

was finally diagnosed with scoliosis

for those who don’t know scoliosis is a

spinal disorder

the spine is made up of multiple bones

called vertebrae that are connected by

elastic tissues called fibrocartilage

scoliosis is when your vertebrae form a

curved line in an

s or c shape instead of being straight

so these vertebrae are what hold you up

they hold up your entire spine they

allow you to bend

stretch balance and even walk small

curves usually don’t cause problems but

a curve that gets worse means worse for

the patient

very large curves can impair heart

functions lung functions and other major

organs

however i didn’t know that three years

ago three years ago i was simply shown

this my x-ray picture i was told i

needed to get

immediate surgery the surgeon that

diagnosed me at the time

thought it would be a good idea to tell

me all the things that could go wrong in

a spinal fusion surgery

which is not few let me tell you a

spinal fusion surgery

is one of the most major surgeries in

the medical industry

risk number one periblesia in other

words getting paralyzed in the lower

body and legs

risk number two excessive blood loss

which for an anemic person was not

reassuring

number three infection failure of the

spine to fuse

rods breaking screws dislodging and the

list goes on

and honestly he lost me at paralyzed all

i could think about was

you’ll never walk down the aisle you’ll

never walk up to get your diploma

never never never and in that moment i

took a glance at my mother

and it was just a glance i could have

imagined it but there’s not

my mother with tears in her eyes there

sat

the woman whom i thought was the

strongest in the world

with eyes filled to the brim

and that was when i decided to put up my

big girl facade

i took a deep breath i pretended to be

cool calm and collected

keywords being pretended i looked at the

doctor and i put a smile on my face and

i said

no worries i did my research i know i’m

fine

yes i did do my research but in that

research i had barely caught a glimpse

of what was yet to come

so when we went home that day my coping

mechanism

was to just drown myself in research and

i just kept reading and

reading and reading until it wasn’t

enough until i needed to hear

someone real talk about their real life

experience

so i resorted to youtube and i clicked

on a video of a girl

talking about what she went through bad

move on my end

i was not in a state to hear a girl

suffering of anorexia talk about her

failed surgery

i just i needed someone to tell me that

i was gonna be okay

and that was when i finally decided to

talk to my mom about it

i bawled my eyes out admit that i was

scared and that i didn’t want to do this

my mom worked her magic like moms do and

lended me her strength

but i was also told that i had to do

physiotherapy before surgery

and i did for about two to three months

but i was told i had to do physiotherapy

before surgery and i did for about

two to three months and then

came september 17 2017

surgery day september 21 i sat up for

the first time

and then i started walking and then i

went up the stairs

and then my favorite one i went back

home

and in order to completely recover i did

physiotherapy

three times a week and every day at home

for eight months and then winter break

came along and i got to

escape reality when we traveled for two

weeks

when we got back and i went to my

checkup

i found out that i was back to square

one

that in the span of just two weeks my

year-long hard work was gone that’s my

300th days of pain were

completely useless that i had to start

it all

all over again as well as

get a back brace a bulk of plastic

killing me on the planets seriously you

can barely breathe in that thing

that was when i had reached my lowest

lots of what’s the point

thoughts what’s the point in trying if i

continue to fail what’s the point

in bothering at all if i’m just never

gonna get better

so to move on from that dark point in my

life

to today where i love my experience i

love my scar i’ve joined

non-profit organizations dedicated to

supporting young patients

i’ve contributed in a scoliosis app

research dedicated to helping patients

throughout their journey

it’s a huge 180 and i was able to

achieve this

growth when i realized that beginnings

don’t start at the start of something

meaning a new beginning does not require

a new day or a new month or a new year

your new beginning can start whenever

you decide for it to start whenever you

get up and decide to make it happen

because at the end of the day

you’re always gonna have all this time

in your hands and it’s all completely

meaningless

unless you do something with it there is

no

right time it’s what you decide to do

with your time that makes it right

once i decided that this time i’m gonna

do it right but this time

i will get better that’s when i really

started to recover

when i learned that you must make your

beginnings not wait for them to start