Surgeries

After the car crash I talked about in my previous post, we found that I had scoliosis. For those who don't know what that is, it's when the spine is curved. It's not uncommon, but in most cases, back braces can fix it and it isn't bad. When they found mine, we had no idea that I had it and no one knew how long I had it. My spine was curved into a backwards 'S'. It curved over my right shoulder blade and my left hip. Both curves were at least 60 degrees. That was just when they found it. The doctors knew that a brace wouldn't fix it, so they didn't even try. My birthday is May 27. My surgery was May 31, 2011, four days after I turned 14 years old. I was in the surgery for 10 1/2 hours and when I came out, I had a titanium rod on each side of my spine (2 total) and 52 bolts and screws holding it in place. Being face down for that long, there were risks. I could have come out blind, deaf, not able to speak. There was even a chance that I might not be able to walk again because they were messing with my spine. Well, I am able to talk and hear and see. I can still walk just like everyone else. My senses actually enhanced. I have great hearing and I have 20/20 vision. I stutter, but my mom says I always have. Nothing really changed. Except for one thing. I had amnesia. I can't remember anything from before my surgery except for a few things. I'm almost 4 years out now, and I still can't remember much. It drives me crazy. But none of this is bad. Not yet at least. Not until legions began to appear on my scar (runs from the base of my neck to the top of my tail bone, the entire length of my back). My mom panicked. She called my doctor and we had to go get tests done. These legions kept appearing along my scar for close to a month. Momma tried to keep my scar clean and she would help the legions to drain (green ooze came out). There were days when I would sit on her bed for hours and she would fill towels up until they were heavy with the liquid from the legions. We were on our way to the hospital on June 18th to get some blood tests done when my mom got a call from my surgeon. He told us that the mersa kit came back positive. Mersa is an infection that could kill someone if left in their body or attached to something vital, in my case, my spine. His next sentence got me terrified, "She has to go back into surgery tomorrow." We only had one days notice. We weren't expecting that. I kept blaming everyone, wondering why this had to happen to me. The next morning, we went to the hospital and I went back into surgery, this time only being 6 1/2 hours. The mersa had in fact attached itself to my spine and they had to scrap it off. I was in the hospital for another week before going home on IV antibiotics for 6 months, 3 times a day every day. I also had a drain at the base of my scar to help the rest of the infection get out of my body. When the 6 months finished, the drain and pick line (the IV in my right arm, had a line that went all the way to my heart) came out. Then I was on pill antibiotics, 3 times a day every day. I was lucky to survive all that. Especially since I was the first in 2 years of my surgeons patients to have developed mersa. But I did survive. And yes, I still have some complications and pain some days, I am still fighting,