How I found out

Hi. My name is Alis, I’m 15 years old and I have scoliosis. Scoliosis is an abnormal curvature of the spine which can develop during adolescence. If the curve gets too large, it can have pretty intense effects as it can start to crush internal organs and cause breathing problems. At the moment it causes me pain after doing sports or carrying my 100lb bag around school every day. This is a big journey for me and I’m going to use this blog as a way to share my experience and raise awareness, as well as to make sense of it for myself. My first couple of uploads are going to be filling you in on my story so far and then I’ll give weekly updates as time goes on. So here we go!

Picture the scene: it’s summer 2016, you’re walking around at a music festival when your mum notices that your top is hanging unevenly, one side touching your trousers and one half exposing your waist. She tries to straighten it up for you, but it won’t stay in place. It was only then when she realises that there’s something wrong – your spine isn’t straight.

This is what happened to me. We had heard about scoliosis before so we were quick to connect the dots and realise what was going on. We rushed down to my GP who referred me to my local hospital. Here, a doctor referred me to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore where we saw a consultant.  Even though it took nearly a year, it was all very overwhelming and felt like a huge rush. Over this time we were hit with a lot of information but there were two main points.

-    - I have a 50’ curve which is classed as significant and therefore most surgeons would recommend surgery.

-    - The NHS does a procedure called Fusion – an irreversible, 6 hour process in which the cartilage is removed between the vertebrates and what is essentially scaffolding is put up your spine. The individual bones are fused together to become a single, unbendable bone. This will completely remove all flexibility in my back for the rest of my life and leaves me wondering: will I ever be able to dance, ride rollercoasters, jump on trampolines or even tie my shoes laces? This is not ideal.

This left us with a lot to think about and my mum started to research it, trying to work out if Fusion is the best option we have or if there is another way to tackle it. And luckily, there is...