The Rods...

I've been getting lots of pain in my upper back and lower neck and its been this way for the past 3 days. Yeah, it sucks! And I've been probably driving every one of my followers on Twitter because of my complaining. Sorry, but when your in pain and medicine no longer works and people don't know why its hurting. You end up telling a bunch of people about it. But thanks to them, I feel the love of the ones that have asked about my back. So lets get to the story.

When I was born I was born with two diseases: Arthrogryposis and Scoliosis. I have a club foot and I dont know what the other is called. I've had to wear a brace for several years. I haven't had to wear a brace since I was 10. In 2002 I was told that I was going to have 3 surgeries in the matter of possibly 2 months, but it ended up being 4 1/2 months. I spent my birthday there. The first surgery was all about putting this metal halo on my head and screwing these little screws in my head to keep it in place. It had a strap where all the patients that we're going thru these surgeries that hooked up to a metal I guess you could say a "hanging bar" and when these straps were hooked onto it it lifted me in place. This surgery was the only surgery that I had at Shriner's Hospital in St. Louis, MO.

My second surgery was in September and I had it at Children's Hospital in St. Louis, MO. This surgery was about taking out one of my ribs (yes, I said ribs) and crushing it and taking the cartlege thats in between your spine and they sewed me back up. But this surgery had one heck
of a story about the day before. I have never taken blood before and me being 10 I took one look at that needle and exploded. Not too happy about it, I still dont like needles. Well after that day was done I was in the RC room where they had games and other things at and I saw one of my favorite nurses coming right for me. I knew exactly what she needed me for. They didnt have enough blood to take and had to do it again. Lets say nobody was on my good side afterwards.

My third and final surgery was about taking the halo off, putting the crushed rib in where the cartlege was and then inserting the rods in place. After they put the rods in they put a little thing between my knee bone and tilted me upside down and pulled me and they said they got 7 inches afterwards. I had a 150 deg curve in my back and I now have a 50 deg curve. This surgery was two weeks after the second surgery. They said my body was healing faster than my roommates was.