Scoliosis: Life, Support & Friends

Hey, fellow ScoNuts. Sorry for my lack of posts, but minus the surgery, there's nothing very interesting about my day-to-day life. At least, nothing none of you aren't already painfully familiar with. I moved in with my boyfriend, and he's being wonderful to me. He does everything for me, despite my protests; consequently, I have become even more sedentary (I didn't realize that was possible), so my pain has skyrocketed. I know I'm gaining weight, too. I still don't have insurance, but I have the option to buy a policy from the company that used to insure me. Of course, who's going to insure me with a spine like mine? At best, it'll be labeled a preexisting condition and excluded completely. So I have to apply and be approved for disability before I can go back to St. Louis, and God only knows how many years that will take. Dr. Bones wanted me to wait ten more years, and now it looks like I might have to. :( I've got some tips about good disabi...

Well, my fame as a blogger seems to be short-lived. Unfortunately I've lost my health insurance, and I won't be having surgery after all. I found out about two weeks ago, but it's been hard to organize my thoughts since then. At first I was extremely relieved, which really surprised me. I hadn't realized I was that scared. Now I'm just crushed. I'm really depressed about it. I had a muscle spasm an hour ago, and it lasted over 15 minutes. I can finally move again, but it's still hurting. Oh, well. Dr. Bones wanted me to wait ten years anyway. Hopefully Dr. STL will still be practicing in ten years.

Dammit, I promised myself I wouldn't cry. Mom and I drove to Tulsa and flew to St. Louis. Completely uneventful. Up early the next morning, called the shuttle to the hospital so we wouldn't have to worry about parking and grabbed breakfast in the cafeteria. Let me tell you something. Barnes Jewish is the biggest hospital I've ever seen. No joke, the building I was in is 20 stories high and all of the buildings cover SEVEN CITY BLOCKS. This place was GINORMOUS. I got two new x-rays taken. Oh, I forgot to mention, I was in excruciating pain THE ENTIRE TRIP. So I couldn't stand up straight (especially without my shoes) during the x-rays. I didn't bother to tell the radiologists or Dr. STL, I don't really know why. I was amazed to see the x-ray up on the lightboard. My bones are so off center when I am in pain. It was a good thing I stood like that, though. None of my previous x-rays had shown that my L4 vertebra is a good 1-1.5 cm to the left of my L3 ...

Hola Everyone We have another request. A lady has just joined our Scoliosis Support Group who is resident in South Africa. She is fused from T1 to L4 with a Harrington Rod (we are assuming this because she has flatback) and now has flatback issues, she is now very scared and in desperate need of a Dr in South Africa for Scoliosis, it is apparent that she now requires revision surgery but needs a Dr in South Africa that could help her, we are now appealing for this information. She has a name of a Doctor in Cape Town who has done only 15-20 operations for Scoliosis revision but would like to link up with people that have seen this Doctor so she may learn more and ask questions, or she would like to hear from other Scoliosis specialists out there that may be able to help. Thanks in advance to our readers and hope we can come together and help this lady find someone she can trust.