emily the hunchback.

When I was around 11 I started getting pain in my back if I sat on a chair without a back rest or if I stood too long. I'm pretty sure most humans on this planet have similar pain doing those things, but as I kept getting older the pain got worse. When I was 16 I had to get a physical for my tennis team, and the doctor told me I had Scoliosis. I was super confused because they make you get checked in school every year and no one had ever said anything to me about it before. I'm pretty sure everyone's favorite day of gym class was the day they checked your backs because you got to waste a lot of time doing nothing. Well apparently those Scoliosis checker people have no idea what they're doing. Thanks public education. It was kind of nice to understand why my back hurt so bad, but also scary to look into the possibility of surgery. Well I put it off for two years, and my back got really bad. I'm at the point where I wake up in pain and go to bed in even worse pain. The only position that relieves any of the pain is lying flat on my back, but even that sucks. During this Christmas break I decided to go get my back looked at by a specialist because I was tired of always hurting. I got some x-rays and I was just expecting to find out how bad my Scoliosis was, but it turns out I don't even have Scoliosis! The curvature in my back is called Thoracic Kyphosis. This is similar to Scoliosis except Scoliosis is when your spine is curved like an "S" and Kyphosis is when your spine is curved like a hump. Super attractive, I know. A normal spinal curve is 40-45%, and my curve is 78%. 

(a normal spine on the left, my spine on the right)

The amazing news is that I don't need surgery! I don't even want to imagine that scenario. But the bad news is that I have to do a ton of physical therapy. I started physical therapy the first week of January, and it has been going well. I go twice a week every week, and each appointment is about 2 hours and 45 minutes. Obviously it's a struggle to dedicate 6 hours a week to physical therapy when I have a million other things going on, but I know it'll be worth it. I'm making friends with all of my aids and all the elderly patients, so it's actually kind of fun. There's an elderly woman who always talks about how she used to have a swearing problem, and an elderly man who never wears socks. They're cool people. A lot of the aids are really attractive young men, but it sucks because they're all married. I call them Hot Steven, or Hot Brian, or Hot whatever their name is. Don't worry, I already know I'm an inappropriate person. The physical therapy has been helping, but I definitely have a long way to go. I'm not really excited to get older because this will only get worse with age. I hope I don't end up looking like Quasi Moto, because I can't even get dates looking the way I do right now! Anyways, show my x-rays to your children and scare them into having good posture. That's not why my spine is curved, but I'm sure growing up with better posture would have helped haha. Oh, and special shout out to my roommate Kiana for all the back massages. You're appreciated.