Dealing with Scoliosis
by Maggie Rudolph

               Scoliosis is a medical condition that causes your spine to curve or twist to the side.  Scoliosis affects about 816,000 people in the U.S. and it is most common in females.  Maggie Rudolph, 19 is someone that suffers from a severe case of scoliosis.

                In 2006 Maggie went in for her annual physical.  She’d been working all summer and was suffering from back pain.  She noticed that her left shoulder blade was sticking out.  Her doctor also noticed the hump on her back so she went in for x-rays.

Maggie was diagnosed with a minor curve in 2002.  But she was surprised when she saw the x-rays taken that day.  The doctor said, “These don’t look good.”  That’s when she saw the backwards question mark that was her spine.

                The next week she was sent to the Sports and Medicine Hospital in Kearney.  The doctor told her that her spine had an abnormal curve of 51 degrees.  It could not be fixed with a brace, surgery was needed.

                Dr. Brian Hasley from the Omaha Children’s Hospital explained to Maggie the procedure for the surgery.  He would make an incision down her back and move her spine to the proper position. Bone grafts would be added to fuse the spine together so it would not move.  He would add stainless steel rods and screws to hold the spine straight until the bone grafts fused together.

              The next few months consisted of checkups and x-rays to prepare for surgery.  Maggie wasn’t nervous until the morning of December 11th.  They were about to put in her anesthetics when Dr. Hasley said it couldn’t be done because of a urinary tract infection.  He didn’t want to risk any kind of infection with this big surgery.

                January 22, 2007, Monday, “I wasn’t so nervous this time, I knew exactly what was going to happen.”  Maggie sat up on Wednesday.  “My back felt extremely different, kind of numb and heavy.”  The rest of the week was a routine of practicing to walk and lying in bed.  On Sunday she was sent home.

Maggie took a month to recover until she could go to school.  She had to make sure she got up and walked, she couldn’t lift anything, and she couldn’t bend over for two months.  She began feeling better as the year went on.  She was moving better, had a job, and started college.  “I was sure my back wouldn’t be bothering me for a long time.”

                After Thanksgiving 2007 the pain started.  Maggie began experiencing a sharp pain in her hip.   As the weeks went on it got worse.  In January she went to see Dr. Hasley to find out what was wrong.  Dr. Hasley thought it was her sciatic nerve and muscle tension so he suggested physical therapy.

                The pain got worse and spread through her lower back.  The pain was so intense that she couldn’t get up to go to her classes.  It hurt her to walk, sit, and sleep.  All she could do was lie down to dull the pain.  

           She called Dr. Hasley to tell him about the pain.  He said that he didn’t know what to do about it until Maggie finished physical therapy.  “I was in agony, I thought I was doing something wrong or I was being punished for something.  My grades were slipping and I was skipping classes because I couldn’t handle sitting through them.  I was inches away from giving up completely.” 

People around Maggie were noticing the change in her behavior and were telling her to eat and move more, thinking her muscles were out of shape. 

 After six months of agony Maggie got a large blister on her back that popped.  She went straight to Dr. Hasley.  The blister was a sore from a staph infection that had been growing for a year.  The infection was caused by the metal rods placed in her back.  Maggie went through two more surgeries to take out the rods and clean out the infection.  After surgery her pain had been relieved.  “I felt 100% better.  I was still very sick from the staph infection, but the pain was gone and that’s all that mattered to me.”

Maggie lost twelve pounds and had been having fevers for months.  She didn’t realize how sick she was because all she could focus on was pain. 

Today Maggie is near the end of the long road to recovery for her infection.  Dr. Hasley has her wear a back brace because not all of her spine is fused.   She feels better, she’s enjoying college again, and feels she can go on with life.  “I feel like I got my life back.  I wasted months of my life suffering and not going anywhere.  Not having scoliosis would have made my life easier, but now I see it as an experience on how much I appreciate my health.”