I can’t believe that its 2 ½ years ago today that I was being wheeled down for my surgery and wondering what the future would hold for me. Indeed, what I was really hoping for was that someone would stabilise my spine as a very minimum to stop it hurtling off to my right hand side at an alarming rate. I find myself sometimes idly speculating about what would have happened if I hadn’t had it done. Having reached a point where my head was then outside of my hip line, let alone my body line, gravity was really taking its toll and my 1-2 degree a year shift (which is typical for a progressive scoliosis) turned into a 6 degree shift per year in the last 2 years before surgery. OK, let’s do the maths...I was about 75 degrees before surgery in my lumbar curve; add 15 degrees for 2 ½ years – that would put me at a 90 degree lumbar curve right now. In another 2 ½ years that would be over 100 degrees...so, if I hadn’t had the surgery that would have been the situation in 5 years and I would have been looking at 130 degrees in 10 years. I now see why they told me that I was looking at major organ failure and paralysis in 10 years if I didn’t get it done....whoa.....scary....!
It seems to make it all the more amazing then that I now find myself sitting here at the desk in the middle of my office chair. By in the middle I mean that my body is pretty much equidistant from each chair arm...I don’t lean to the right, or the left. I, to all intents and purposes look completely straight. I’m not perfectly straight externally but only me and hubby can see it (and he only spots it occasionally). Internally I look pretty twisted and stuffed full of metal but hey, who can tell?
Of course, the surgery hasn’t been without its drawbacks, but the last time I saw my surgeon he was pleased – and as to the minor remaining niggles? Well his words were “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs!” I figure I’m lucky, I had a spina bifida repair at T12/L1*1 and all the associated scar tissue and spinal cord compromise that goes with it, a broken vertebrae at T10, my spinal cord was split lengthways (this is not normal) from T11 all the way down to L4 (that’s at the top of your bottom/pelvis). To add insult to injury, my spinal cord was (and still is) tethered at T12 and L5 (the one below L4) and L4 and L5 were fused together. That’s without the scoliosis which was what the surgery was for! I figure that my poor old surgeon had a difficult task in front of him and to achieve a 50% correction and a near upright posture was close to a miracle. So what if I have a chunk of my belly and my leg where all feeling has deserted me...I have a life and that’s all that matters. Anything more, like the greater use of the wheelchair or getting my purple leg is pretty minor in comparison to what I would have had to go through if I hadn’t had it done.
I sometimes think actually that all the people out there on the scoliosis forums (and I include myself) stick so much to the ‘better the devil you know’ part of your scoliosis that you don’t really appreciate what the future might be without the surgery. Sobering sometimes, innit?
*1 That’s about ½ way between your belly button and your bra strap line - assuming of course that you either wear one, or if not, have some vague idea of where it is....
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