Play It Straight

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday January 13, 2005

Clare Taylor

At age 12, during a school medical, I was asked to touch my toes. Delighted with my flexibility, I did so, only to be told I had scoliosis (curvature of the spine) and to find myself in hospital just a few weeks later.

I spent the next six years wearing a series of full-torso plaster casts and braces to try to press the spine into shape. It was a challenging way to spend one's teenage years, but I would have done anything to avoid the alternative - an operation to insert steel rods into my spine, followed by six months on my back before I could walk again.

I had seen these lifeless girls (95 per cent of scoliosis sufferers are female) lying in hospital and I feared it more than anything.

At 18, my treatment ended and I was set free, though my spine still curved 41 degrees off straight. Fifteen years later, I applied for residency in Australia and the chest X-ray showed the anomaly. I needed a consultant's approval before I was granted residency and his examination showed my curve had progressed to 52 degrees. We agreed to monitor it for three years - in that time it increased to 58 degrees.

I was not experiencing pain. I controlled that through exercise, which kept my spine supple. I was, however, experiencing frequent injuries to my achilles tendon and hips. My surgeon likened the effect of the scoliosis on my body to running a car on one axle. The prognosis was a continued decline, more pain, less mobility and a risk of pneumonia from my compressed lungs and the spine's curve - and thus a reduced life expectancy. Surgery to resolve the problem would only become more risky with age. At 35, I went in for the procedure I had dreaded since the age of 18. I was so scared that my teeth chattered. I trained for the operation, got as fit as I could and gave 1.5 litres of blood for storage in the run-up to the procedure.

The surgery took more than seven hours. My surgeon took bone grafts from my pelvis and fused my spine, straightening it as much as he could with 10-centimetre screws running through the vertebra and two titanium rods (apparently, the steel rods of old had a habit of snapping). He warned I would likely need two weeks in hospital and four months off work.

Three days after the operation, I was walking (20 years earlier it would have taken six months). After five days in hospital, I was sent home. I had four weeks off work and after four months I was running again.

It is now two years years since I had the operation. I have a little more pain than before, as there is less "give" in my back, but I run, go to the gym, lift heavy objects and live a normal life. My scars are almost invisible and I am 3cm taller because I have a straighter spine. It is still about 30 degrees off straight but, hey, what an improvement!

I wouldn't wish the surgical procedure on anyone, but a determination not to let it slow me down has meant that it hasn't.

I have discovered that the bracing I endured in my teens has since been found only to delay the progression of the curve, not arrest it. I am still glad I bought another 20 years - technology has moved on so much that my experience was vastly better than it might have been.

In this column, you are invited to tell us your story. Send 650 words with your contact details, including daytime phone number, to lchristopher@smh.com.au or fax 92822481. Submissions may be edited and published on the internet.

© 2005 Sydney Morning Herald

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