I had my first spine surgery at 15

Six words changed my life forever.

“You will need to have back surgery.”

I found out during a visit to a spine specialist. My primary doctor noticed I had scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, but a very mild form of it. He referred me to a specialist to be on the safe side. I thought the process would be quick and painless – one quick checkup and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. Little did I know the appointment would reveal something that would take up years of my life.

At the specialist’s office they took x-ray images of my spine.  The x-rays showed something else besides scoliosis- a condition called spondylolisthesis, or slippage of vertebra. I had a very severe form of it and needed corrective surgery as soon as possible.

I was 15 years old.

I burst into tears. My brain did not fully process thoughts, I only reacted. The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt like molasses. It was as if everything moved slowly and the air was sticky. If my life was a movie, that scene would have been in slow motion.

It didn’t seem real. When the doctor explained the procedure, I could only imagine someone else going through it, not me. I was too young. Major back surgery is something geriatrics have to worry about, not teenagers. 

The worst part about it was I really had no choice in the matter. The condition was congenital. For 15 years my back was deteriorating. If I did not get the procedure done, there was a high chance I could become paralyzed in the future. It was like being thrown as a pawn in a chess game I wanted no part of.

 

My surgery was scheduled for about a year later. For the first couple months of waiting I had more questions than anything. Would I make it out okay? How long would I be in the hospital? What would my recovery be like?

According to the specialist, surgery fatalities were very rare, a slim percentage. However, my mind ruminated on that small chance ad nauseam for months. No one should ever have to think about dying at age 15.

A couple of months before my surgery I had an MRI of my spine. This would also be the day where my outlook about the surgery would change.

Thoughts can come and go like a gust of wind and it just so happened to be a breezy mid-afternoon that day when mine began to change. The poetic part of me would like to think one powerful blast of wind came and took my worry and doubt with it. And with it brought a clarity of mind I had never had before. Serenity had suddenly flowed through my veins. My surgery was going to happen and there was nothing I could do about it. That was okay. I had finally learned acceptance.  My mind had almost felt like it had been scrubbed of its anxiety. For the next few months of waiting before my surgery, I was calm, ready to face what laid before me.

It was the pre-op appointment a few days before and the doctor and I talked about the small percentage again- the amount of people who have died due to surgery complications.

“It could happen, but it’s very rare,” the doctor said reassuringly.

His words did nothing to assuage my fears. If serenity came like a gust of wind, then nerves came back like a jolt of lightning before a thunderstorm. I knew a storm was coming, but the impact of what was actually happening took me by surprise.

Sleep the night before surgery was nonexistent. I lay there awake thinking of every possible thing that could go wrong. I replayed everything that would happen to me in my mind over and over again as if doing so meant it already happened.

Before I knew it it was 4 a.m. and I needed to get up. No matter what the circumstances are, I truly believe everyone feels calm at 4 a.m. There’s something about the birds chirping, the stagnant air. I was in serenity mode. Even though it was not likely to happen, I thought about how I could die that day. I accepted it for what it was.

At 7 a.m. they  wheeled me back to the operating room. At that point any fears I had went out the window because they gave me what they call “happy juice.” It was a concoction that tasted how garbage smells, but it made me giggly and light.

With tears in her eyes my mom held on to my hand for as long as she could.

“I love you, hon. Everything will be fine,” she said, her voice thick.

My mom is already an anxious person – I can’t imagine how she was feeling at that moment. I can only say that the day was most likely one of the worst of her life. She too was worried about the small chance I wouldn’t make it.

I woke up seven hours later to the sound of beeping. It was my heart monitor. I was alive.

What followed was five days of delirium and agony. I either was sleeping from the painkillers, nauseous from them, or in so much pain it was if as I didn’t take anything. The pain was a deep ache, a constant, horrific throb. Anytime I moved too much it felt like my lower back was being crushed by a tanker truck.

Soon I was out of the hospital and faced a summer of recovery. For three months I was mostly holed up in my room as I could not handle too many stairs. While my friends and classmates were throwing sweet sixteens and getting summer jobs, I was stuck in bed watching daytime soaps and old game shows.

To make matters worse, I had to wear a leg and back brace for a few months. I looked like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster, with bolts and screws jutting out. Whenever I did go out, eyes were automatically drawn to me.

Every once and awhile a bitter thought would pop into my head.

Why me? This is unfair.

But then I would take a deep breath and accept. It is what it is.

Time passed. Many follow-up appointments followed. I missed many class days and even special events, such as receiving my class ring, because of pain. My friendships were strained as recovery from back surgery did not allow carefree trips to the mall or high-energy high school dances. However as the days flew by, my back slowly but surely healed from the surgery. Pain became a variable, rather than a constant. Towards the end of senior year, I finally began to resume life as a regular teenager.

Three years after my surgery, the summer before I would start college, I walked out of the children’s hospital beaming. I was discharged from the doctor’s care, my back was in stable condition, the slippage corrected. The nightmare was over.

Or so I thought it was.

As it turns out dealing with a back condition is like a nightmare where you think you’ve woken up and everything is fine, but the nightmare abruptly continues.

Three years after being discharged from the children’s hospital, I sat in another specialist’s office. The same exact scene from when I was 15 replayed. The doctor furrowed his brows in concern. The molasses feeling returned.

“Surgery would probably be your best bet.”

I was 21.

I had been having off and on excruciating pain. I ignored it for awhile, not wanting to admit my back could be deteriorating.

It turned out the vertebrae in my spine had started slipping again. Surgery would most likely help ease the pain.

To my utter dismay, months after the surgery not only was I still in pain, but the pain was worse than before. From sun up to sun down, my only concern would be to stop the agony. The pain varied. Some days it was pounding, like someone took a hammer to my back. Other times, it was sharp and violent, like someone was frantically inserting thousands of needles in my lower spine. Because of this pain, I could not even sit for more than an hour. I spent my days locked in the prison that is chronic pain.

My personality made matters worse. Naturally, I am a go-getter and have a type-A personality. Because of chronic pain, I could not work or go to school for a year. I watched everyone else’s lives go by as mine seemed to stay stagnant. It killed me that I could not finish school or obtain an internship. It was as if my life had no rhyme or reason to it. A bitter seed began to grow deep in my soul.

Why wasn’t I allowed to live the life I wanted to live?

It was as if the pain controlled my life and I had no say. I was its puppet. My spirits were obliterated. My will to live ran thin.

Monotonous days turned into nights filled with self-destructive, poisonous thoughts. Weeks and months passed. I had become a ghost of my former self. Then one day I heard it.

It was a faint whisper deep inside me, somewhere beneath all of the self-loathing and depression.

It spoke one word.

Accept.

It didn’t come as easy as the first time. It was a slow and steady process, like climbing a mountain. It takes hard work trying to tell yourself that pain is just going to be a part of your life. I figured out that acceptance is also a person’s approach to a subject. I could find a way to live with chronic pain and be happy or continue being miserable. I tried to find the perks of having all the free time I had. I could finally binge watch that nine-season-show I always wanted to watch. I had all the time in the world to write whatever I wanted.

With this newfound viewpoint, I became more determined to fight my pain. I looked up alternative treatments. I was then put on a medication that performed a miracle – it actually eased the pain.

Time went by and I got a job. I went back to school. I began putting back the pieces of my previous life.

Today, I am still in pain everyday, and sometimes it is agonizing, but it is nowhere near the level it was before. To the best of my ability I try to accept whatever life throws at me and live in the moment.

People may say we write our own destinies, but sometimes life throws its own plot twists in. It’s what we do with those plot turns that really count.