SUDDENLY CHRONIC

How Cassandra Michaels ‘22 is dealing with the fact that she has a chronic diease out of nowhere

In February of 2018, I had to get surgery on my spine to correct a 63-degree curve in my lower spine to help lessen the pain caused by my scoliosis. My family and I were worried because we weren’t sure if I would be recovered enough for the beginning of freshman year. My surgeon reassured me I would be recovered after 6 months, just in time for school to start.

Since the surgery was during the third trimester of my eighth-grade year, I actually ended up somewhat going back to school for the last two months, but only for four of my classes, two in the morning and two in the afternoon in which I would arrive to class before it started and left before it ended. I also used a rolling backpack and the elevator to move between floors as stairs were still hard to climb up and for the first sixth months I wasn’t supposed to lift anything, and especially not carry anything on my back.

It went all right, my friends helped me as much as they could and students rarely asked for an explanation. The worst thing was when my Science teacher sat me on the other side of the room from the door and it was very awkward having to leave class in front of everyone watching.

I was so ready to be recovered and not have to use a rolling backpack, to walk up the stairs like normal, to be in class the same amount as everyone else, so my recovery before my freshman year was something I was looking forward to.

Now, you might be assuming, like I used to, that ‘recovered’ means no more pain, however, I quickly learned this wasn’t the case. Pretty much everything could and would hurt my back. Sometimes it was aching pain, sometimes sharp pain, and sometimes bruising pain. One of the worst things about this was it never showed externally, after my surgery the only off thing about my back was a scar that goes up 3/4th of my back and my still slightly uneven shoulders.

Not being able to point to a cut or a bruise and go ‘That’s it, that’s what’s making me hurt’ sometimes makes me feel like I’m overreacting, and for the longest time I kept relatively quiet about it. Some days it hurts so much that I can’t focus in class, even sometimes I get close to tears, but I wouldn’t go to the nurses’ office because I felt like they would say stuff similar to what my surgeon told me, that “It would stop hurting if you just did a bit of exercise.”

He probably didn’t say exactly that, it’s been almost a year now since I last had a checkup with him. But when he’d say this I just couldn’t because if sitting hurts, imagine how bad doing stretches or yoga, but that’s the only thing he’d ever say when I mentioned it still hurt.

But then I went online and saw that scoliosis was considered chronic. If you look up chronic, you’ll find that most descriptions include words like ‘constant’, ‘long time’, ‘reoccurring’, and even ‘difficult to get rid of ’. When I explain what chronic means I usually say it means something that is treatable but isn’t curable. Everywhere scoliosis related I went said that it was normal and expected to continue feeling pain even years after surgery and hearing that was both heartbreaking and made me happy.

It was like I was justified, I wasn’t an outlier, something hadn’t gone wrong during my surgery, this was expected. And it felt like a weight was lifted off of me. And it was great.

My parents didn’t seem to realize I wasn’t aware the pain was forever, They seemed to feel really bad that I hadn’t realized it but after thinking about it they realized that no doctor or nurse had said anything like that.

“IT WOULD STOP HURTING IF YOU JUST DID A BIT OF EXERCISE”

They didn’t know exactly how to deal with that, but like how we talked when I first was told I had scoliosis we talked about this realization we decided to start trying to do what we could do on our own to help me get through the day with minimal pain.

First, my mom bought these ‘Biofreeze’ products, one was a box of somewhat large patches and the other was a spray. These products worked somewhat, the weird sensation of a weird mix of cold and hot on my back definitely distracted me from the pain but it also was too distracting in class.

A bit after the Biofreeze products were a fail we tried going to a physical therapist recommended by the surgeon as my mom wanted me to at least try to do his suggestion of exercising.

It went alright, the physical therapist was nice but even after her working through my back muscles and teaching me some simple exercises that were supposed to help lessen the pain after the seventh or so appointment she said that she felt like other than me doing a short routine of exercises every morning there wasn’t much else she could do to help me.

I was honestly really upset by this, especially because when you think of physical therapy you think of a very long process and many months of appointments. I almost instantly stopped doing the exercises after that because they already didn’t seem to be doing anything, but now my physical therapist had told me there wasn’t anything else to do.

The most recent attempt is a back brace. It’s not the kind you usually associate with scoliosis, its no plastic molded perfectly to keep my spine straight, it specifically holds my body in a way to help my spine. It’s just an elastic and fabric back brace from Walgreens.

I started wearing it to school and it helped a bit, made my posture a bit better, not too many people asked questions because I’m not someone who tries to hide my scoliosis, mostly so people know when I’m complaining about my back, it’s a bit different from how most students would

complain about the back pain caused by hard wooden or plastic chairs and how low the desks were from where they were. It was a lot deeper than that.

My scoliosis is going to be something I have to deal with for my whole life, it will never just magically go away. There’s even a chance that on the part of my spine without and metal that another curvature will appear, somedays I even think that must be what’s happening with how off my shoulders feel, or how hunched it feels like I’m walking.

I was very emotional when I first was diagnosed, and then very emotional when I learned my curve was past the point of bracing and to the point of surgery. Somedays it gets bad enough that I can’t get out of bed, and it really sucks, but I’ve been learning what I can do to lessen the pain and will continue to learn as I get older and have these pieces of metal in my spine for even longer. It’s going to be hard somedays, but I think I’m ready to deal with whatever my spine decides to do from here on out.

Feb. 16, 2018 Outside of my recovery room in a wheelchair.

Feb. 17, 2018 Ready to head back home to continue to recover there.

My spine before surgery 63-degree curve My spine after surgery 2 rods and 14 screws

Feb. 28, 2018. Recovering in bed with my cat Tober.

Jan. 14, 2019. For my art project I drew a vent piece. It’s about how it was right where the curve hurt the most back then.

Feb. 16, 2018. Selfie with my parents while in a wheelchair Feb. 13, 2018. I text on my phone while taking a break from attempting to draw before the medicine knocked me out for surgery.

Mar. 1, 2018. Out of bed for the first time playing some Splatoon 2 from the desk set up for me in the Living Room.

Most photos taken by my mom, Annette Michaels