One, two, three… I counted until my vision blackened and I slipped into a deep slumber due to anesthesia. I couldn’t feel or see anything, yet I woke up a different person with a brand new spine.
On a chilly Tuesday afternoon in October when I was 12, I found out I had severe scoliosis. I had spinal curvatures both exceeding forty degrees, this was a lot for me to take in. As soon as my doctors showed me my X-rays, chaos erupted in my brain.
How did I not know what was happening in my own body? Why do I need to get surgery? Why am I not normal?
As the month went by, the dreaded surgery date, Nov 8, 2021 loomed in my head. I felt like I couldn’t think properly. I was going through internal turmoil but all anyone saw was my smile and laugh.
What if something goes wrong during my surgery?
My Dad would tell me all the time that the surgery was minor and it would be super fast. This completely contradicted what the head surgeon Dr. Frank Gerow said when I finally met him. He said that spinal fusion was so complex that it was the longest surgery of the day. It typically took six to eight hours.
Dr. Gerow explained to me that the curvatures in my spine would be stabilized by spinal instrumentation and bone graft. The instrumentation he would use included metal rods, screws, and hooks. The metal rods, screws, and hooks will be used to hold my spine upright, then the bone graft is packed around the vertebrae of my spine to encourage the spine to heal into solid bone.
I felt my head begin to spin when I heard this. The procedure seemed intricate and complicated, Far beyond what I could understand. Being in and out of the hospital for pre-surgery preparations was intimidating. I was with patients who were all told that there was something wrong with their bodies and they needed to be fixed. At least, that’s how I felt.
When surgery day came, I acted like I was a soldier going into combat. My poker face was on. I had to say goodbye to all my friends at school, and I had no idea how many weeks it would be until I would see them again. Walking into the waiting room, my body antsy, nerves coursing through my body, the countdown counting to my final moments.
My parents and I were finally welcomed into the room where I would wait until getting rolled out to the Operation room. I put on the hospital gown and the compression socks. A nurse gave me medicine and the nerves went away. Nurses and doctors were bustling in and out of the room checking on me, asking me If I was all right, and what flavor of anesthesia I wanted (I chose strawberry, of course).
The time came, and all I saw was my parents’ worried faces as we were separated. The doctors rolled me to the operation room. I entered the brightly lit room in shock, I thought every operation room was supposed to look like a scene from Grey’s Anatomy! It was chaos. A bunch of people were attaching so many things to me I couldn’t process what was happening at the moment. Someone came up to me and told me to count to three. One, two, three… my vision darkened.
When I woke up I was in a different hospital room, my new home for the next five days. My parents told me the surgery went really well, and it only took the surgeons five hours because I had no complications. I grew an inch and a half in height and my spine was finally completely straight.
While in the hospital I had to learn how to walk and go up a staircase again. Things that used to be so simple were suddenly challenging, and it was overwhelming to say the least. No one could visit me in the hospital, and all I wanted to do was see my friends.
When I finally got home, I couldn’t do much and I needed plenty of help. I was told I couldn’t carry anything over ten pounds for six months. I couldn’t bend my back for six months. I wasn’t allowed to do much physical activity for six months. My full complete recovery technically wasn’t for a year. Throughout this process, I had to depend on my friends and family. They would make me laugh when I was overwhelmed and listen to me when I needed to rant. This made me feel safe and seen.
If it weren’t for the support system I had, I would’ve been engulfed in anxiety and concern. Speaking about what I was overwhelmed about helped me process and heal. Although the journey was long, I made it to the end.
