My worst enemy... SCOLIOSIS

Have you ever had a sore bum from riding a horse? Or a sore foot from playing a game of capture the flag with bare feet? Maybe a sore leg from your brother-in-law pinching your leg fat with his toes? Well imagine if those things were sore ALL THE TIME!! It would suck. Actually it does suck. I have scoliosis so my back hurts non stop. It has been especially bad the last day or so. I was just sitting in church and all of a sudden my back just started spasming. It was really annoying. I mean, my back really does always always hurt but it was just exceptionally bad this time. I have been in so much pain yesterday and it reminds me of how much I really do hate my scoliosis.

Some of you might be asking yourself what scoliosis is. Actually you probably aren't because chances are your daughter, your wife or you, yourself, has scoliosis, since mom, Joe and Nat are the only people that read this blog. But for any outsiders, here is a brief, but not so brief, description of the worst thing in the world, my biggest enemy..........SCOLIOSIS!!

Scoliosis is the "abnormal lateral curvature of the spine." In other words.... my back is messed up. If I bend over and you feel my back, it is in the shape of an 'S'. Not only that but my entire body is messed up because of this. My shoulders are crooked, my rib cage is turned, my hips aren't aligned and my back muscles are uneven.

So when did my history with scoliosis start? Well I cursed it upon myself. You see, my mom has scoliosis and so does my older sister, Natalie, and I found this out about both of them before I knew that I had it as well. So one day I was in the car with my mom and I told her, " I hope I have scoliosis because it gets Natalie out of cleaning all the time and I want an excuse not to clean." My mom looked at me weird and said, "Natalie handles her scoliosis very well and hardly complains for how much it hurts." I just didn't think that was true at all and hoped and hoped that I would grow up to have scoliosis. I soon after found out that I indeed had it and soon came to realize that it wasn't going to be as cool as I had always thought.

I had to wear this stupid back brace for two years in middle school that made me look absolutely ridiculous. It was this big acrylic thing that pushed up really far under my left armpit and had a giant hole on my left hip so whenever I gained weight, I would only gain it there. Kids at school would always say "knock on wood" and then knock on my back brace. It wasn't even wood. I hope all their problems they were knocking off on me came and bit them in the butt. Wearing that brace was one of the worst experiences of my life. Especially in the summer. When I would take it off, my under shirt would be soaked in my sweat and I could hardly do anything in it so summer was boring as shell. I am so mad that I wished this upon myself and I would never wish it upon anyone else.

I should have surgery but I just haven't gotten around to that. Last I heard my upper back was at a 40 degree angle and my lower was at a 35 degree angle. I'm sure it's worse now because that was like 3 years ago and I've shrunk an inch in the last year. Who knows how tall I should be? Eww, I probably am supposed to have a really long torso.

Well that about sums it up. Scoliosis makes me want a bullet in my back. I hope that my kids do not inherit this unfortunate physical flaw of mine. So next time you have a sore muscle or a head ache or an upset stomach, just think to yourself, "man, I should be grateful I don't have scoliosis."


(I couldn't get the pictures up that I wanted but they will be coming soon.)