The teenage diaries (well almost...)

And so to the next instalment in my curvature history....

Between the ages of 11 and 12 I grew a lot - well that's what I thought anyway and having sprung from a lofty 5ft 2" mother, I finally reached 4ft 11 ¾". Way hay I thought not far to go now and I will be a magical huge 5 feet exactly! It was then that I realised that my curve had other ideas - it bent this way then that and started to look like a backwards S when viewed from behind. Not that I can see it from behind you understand (not even when I try and turn my head a really long way round*) but that's the way they always take x-rays. Anyway as my scoliotic curves got bigger I got shorter and before I was hardly into my teenage years I was back to being 4ft 10". What a swiz!

I was lucky in some ways, my top curve (thoracic for all you medically minded people out there) was almost the same size as my bottom (lumbar) curve. There was only a teeny difference in angle that just made my shoulders look a bit lopsided and if I stood with most of my weight on one leg a-la super model with one hip stuck out I thought I looked pretty straight. Not too straight you understand, I still wanted to look cool (oops must be a different meaning of the word straight popped in there). Standing like that also meant that if I wore a skirt (eeek, a skirt?) the bottom was level and didn't look like I'd hemmed it myself with my wonky glasses on. Of course I would have hemmed it myself anyway (in the 70's you didn't get that many clothes for short girls on the high street unless they were tiny too - and I'm not!) - but all the same I didn’t want people thinking I'd done a rubbish job!

Sooo, time ticked on and wonder of wonders, at womanly curves of 45º (lumbar) and 40º (thoracic) my curves stopped moving, they stopped getting worse and just stayed there as some kind of medical curiosity.

Of course, I can hear you asking, what were the doctors doing during all of this - why didn't they do anything, or did they just like to watch - well, I suppose that's another story (or at least a continuation of the same) and will just have to wait for my next entry. Don't sigh - I have to have something to keep you coming back...


* Or when I do my best Linda Blair impression, or when I do that thing with two parallel mirrors. Well, I guess you get the picture - at no point have I ever seen, well, my behind, from behind (or my back from the back for that matter)!