Braced for Life

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a day that changed my life. I was only 12 and in the sixth grade. I was a happy, healthy kid who had very little to worry about in life.  But that one day changed everything, both good and bad.

I was in the nurse's office.  Every sixth grader in the school had to go through the screening.  Most were checked and sent back to class. If you had it, they kept you back and you waited in the hard plastic chairs that rubbed against the wall.  I was sitting in one of the chairs, just me.  All of the other chairs were empty.  All the other kids had gone back to class.  I almost started to cry but wouldn't let myself.  All my friends already knew because I was not back in class.

I already had glasses. This was not fair. Why me?  The school nurse came out of her office and handed me a note for my parents.  It was in an envelope, sealed of course!  Why the big secret? It was about me, so shouldn't I get to know what it says?  I knew I couldn't open it.  In my house, you didn't do things like that or you spent quality time in you room.  So I left and walked back to class holding the envelope which did not hold a winning ticket. That much I knew.

I walked to elementary school and the walk home never took longer than it did that day. I needed to know what was in the envelope, although I had a general idea.  I thrust the envelope at my mom.  I had to know.  What did it say inside?  She opened it, read it,  and looked at me.  She asked me to turn around and lift up my shirt and bend over.  I did and she ran her hand up and down my spine.  I had scoliosis.

My spine was crooked, really crooked.  I panicked. I knew a kid on the swim team who had scoliosis. He had to wear a brace. That thing was ugly and huge! There was no way I was ever going to wear one of those, ever!

I went to Gillette Children's Hospital which is a 'teaching' hospital. I went through multiple evaluations and had so many x-rays, I'm sure I actually glow at times.  During my appointments I stood in a cold sterile room where the walls were covered with light boxes which projected photos of my spine.  I spent a lot of hours in that room over a period of three years.  Back then, the rooms were not all warm and cozy like they are now. It had a cold tile floor with fluorescent lights and white walls. I still remember.

Then the doctors and student doctors would pour in for the appointment.  Sometimes there were as many as eight of them and all staring at me standing there in my little girl bloomer undies and no shirt. Being on the verge of puberty, this was very traumatic for me. There is no other way  to describe it. They were almost always all men with the exception of the nurse.  Standing in the middle of a cold sterile room, practically naked, with a bunch of men staring at me. I was asked to turn around so they could look at my spine, bend at the waist to see the curvature better, turn sideways to see how my shoulders rolled forward, face front so they could see one shoulder dip lower than the other. The ritual was the same every appointment and could last a half hour.  Now keep in mind, I had been a competitive swimmer for many years at this point so I was not exactly shy about my body, but being naked in front of strangers at this fragile age was no picnic in the park.

The day arrived to get fitted for my Milwaukee brace.  I was now in the seventh grade.  I was at a brand new junior high.  It was located out of my regular school district so I had no friends.  I was the new kid.  My siblings were attending the adjoining senior high school so I was along for the ride to keep us all together.  Lucky me.

In order to get the brace to fit my body, I had to go into the hospital for three days and be fitted. My parents would not allow me to get the experimental muscle shock treatment. This was a unit that was applied, via electrodes, to my back to stimulate the muscles at night while I slept.  It was too new and had not been tested long enough to yield favorable results. I was doomed to the back brace. I had a double curve and one was high on my spine so the Milwaukee Brace was the remedy. It is still in use today.

The process included wearing a 'wife beater t-shirt' and I was covered in a plaster cast from my neck to my butt.  It was a complete mold of me. Once hardened, it was cut off and the metal pieces were formed around the plaster cast.  The pelvic area was made of very hard stiff plastic with holes for air.  I had a 2- inch wide bar up the middle of my chest which attached to a metal hoop around my neck. There were two more bars, about half the width of the front bar, which ran up my back to my neck and attached to the hoop.  The hoop was held shut by a big screw that I fastened in the back.  I had a thick pad under my right armpit to push my spine towards the center and another on my lower left side to push my spine the opposing direction.  I also had a 5- inch wide cloth panel that wrapped all the way around my abdomen and was secured in the back to pull me forward.  I was being pushed and pulled around like Gumby!

I was in my own private jail. I had to wear my brace 23 hours a day.  The only other time I got to take it off was for swim practice.  When I returned to school, I learned what it felt like to be THAT kid.  I was a geek, a dork, a nerd, a freak.  I was the only one in the entire school with a brace. A brace that could not be hid unless I wore a turtle neck. But once I sat in my desk, you could tell, I could not bend at my waist, only at my legs. The plastic in the back pressed against the chair seat and drove the brace up into my chin. I was called crippled by a classmate. It was devastating. I didn't want to go back to school.

But I was stuck with it. I had no choice.  I had to wear it.  There were no options. It wrecked everything.  Clothes, boy crushes, making friends, and summer time was the worse! It was hot and gave me a pancake shaped butt!

Over time, I adjusted.  I made it a strength rather than a weakness. I was already a competitive swimmer and athletic.  I loved gym class and enjoyed beating most of the boys in the Presidential Physical Fitness testing, even though I was a 'cripple'.  I used it to psych other swimmers out at swim meets, when I wore it up to the starting blocks underneath my warm-up suit.   I went canoeing in the Boundary Waters with Camp Widji for four weeks.  I carried canoes over portages while wearing my brace. I went backpacking in the Big Horn Mountains for three weeks while wearing my brace. I broke my brace at least three different times.  The doctors were in shock. No one had ever broken one of their braces.  I was different. I set a new standard.  I did not let the brace control me. I controlled the brace.

I wore my brace for  three very long years.  As my body matured and my spine stabilized, I was able to decrease the amount of time I had to wear it each day.  Eventually, I only had to wear it at night while I slept.  I divorced my brace in the middle of my sophomore year of high school.   But then,  I got braces on my teeth.  That was nothing compared to what I had just gone through.  I already had glasses so my parents decided it was best not to completely geek accessorize me at one time and held off on the braces until then.

I kept my brace for a very long time.  I moved it from house to house as I grew older.  It was a reminder of what I had over come. A reminder of my time in jail.  A reminder that no matter what life threw at me, I could handle it.  This may seem ridiculous to most of you, but it changed my life.

I realized my brace confined me but it did not have to define me. I understood what it was like to be different, but different in a unique way.  We are unique for a reason.  It is up to you to find that reason and build upon it.  It's time to embrace your obstacles and design a  course through them.

Rachel
Braced for Life