Written by Abimbola Oladapo, on living with scoliosis
‘Where were you in 2004’, she
asked the audience. 2004 was the pivotal year.
Then she continued... ‘In 2004, I
was 11 going on 12, and in JSS3. I was in the secondary school boarding house’.
When school closed, I was home for the summer holidays as usual; but it was
going to be anything but usual!
Doing ‘guy’
That summer, every time my big
sister watched me walk, she'd shout out at me ‘Bimbo, why are you walking this
way? Stop bending. You are doing 'guy'. You'll just spoil your posture’. And
every time, I would reply, ‘This is how I've been walking since. I'm not
bending. I don't know what you're talking about’. Doing ‘guy’ meant slanting
one shoulder down and walking with a swagger.
I vividly remember my cousin came
to the house too and said, ‘You! You don't know you are a tall, fine girl and
you can be a model. Look at how you are spoiling your posture, doing 'guy'. It became
annoying as everyone thought I was ‘doing guy’. I couldn't wait to get back to
school.
Then came the Christmas holidays
and I was invited to all the parties. One day, I had dressed for one such party
in a body hugging, fitted green dress, when my sister saw me. She shouted, ‘Huh?
Bimbo, what is wrong with your back?’ She had noticed that my back bone on the
right side was more pronounced than on the left. ‘Oh well, I don’t know what
you're talking about but I am going to the party’, I said.
But, they made me change clothes
to a less fitted dress. Come Monday morning, we landed in front of an
orthopaedic doctor at the Nigerian Military Hospital, Yaba, Lagos. There, the
doctor landed a sucker punch, ‘Your daughter has scoliosis’.
What is scoliosis?
Scoliosis is an abnormal curvature
of the spine - the spine is curved to one side of the body, rather than
straight. It affects girls more than boys and occurs most often during the
pre-adolescent years when girls are self-conscious and insecure about their
changing bodies. 80-90% of scoliosis cases are idiopathic (meaning they have no
known cause).
The doctor referred me to the
National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos. After several x-rays and
following due procedure, I was advised to get a brace. I wore this brace for
two years and the only results I got from the brace were skin rash, scars,
intense heat, and 100% discomfort in my own skin! It was totally hideous and
practically turned me into an oxygen-breathing robot. Oh, there was one good
thing about the brace. Anyone who tried to hit me ended up with sore knuckles!
Actually, the brace prevented the
curve from reaching a surgical curve magnitude. So in a way it worked. Braces
don’t permanently correct scoliosis but halts the progression in about 70% of
cases. This has been proven by a recent NIH study from Iowa which I
participated in.
The psychological effect
But then, beyond the braces, the
one thing I'd never forget about living with scoliosis, apart from fatigue and
back pain, is the emotional scars! My God, they are the deepest of all scars. I
remember being mimicked and being called names like ‘hunchback’. I remember a
girl in secondary school who in a bid to insult me once told me - ‘Come on,
walk straight. You can't even walk straight. See how you are bending. Okay,
prove me wrong. Walk straight’. And then I overheard a boy in university say ‘That
Bimbo girl, I can't even marry someone like her. Person wey no normal’.
Growing up from pre-adolescence
into teenage years is already tough enough, talk less of being tagged as ‘abnormal’
for a condition that is not your fault! It was really demoralising and it took
me about 4 years to break free! I kept running from my own back, hoping I would
wake one morning to find that the scoliosis had vanished! For me to be bold
enough to share this today took a lot of gut, tears, fears, determination,
giving up and starting all over!
A lot of people might say -
what's the big deal about scoliosis? It's not like HIV/AIDS or malaria or any
of the very common diseases. Yes, it is not.
Scoliosis is not even a disease to begin with but it cannot be compared
with any other! It is peculiar in its own way.
Mind games
I'm a firm believer in the
indisputable fact that the one thing that makes or breaks a man is his mind. A
man cannot amount to anything outside of his mind. And so for a condition like
scoliosis that practically cripples the mind, I consider it very much
life-threatening. Because if this thing is going to make me feel like an
outcast, unable to go swimming in public, unable to wear fitting clothes, get
married or fulfil my dreams of becoming an actress, how can I live effectively?
How can I lead a happy, fulfilling life?
The fact that I'm way over my
esteem issues now does not mean others like me can deal with it. As a matter of
fact, it's a battle I have to constantly deal with everyday and remind myself
of emerging victorious. It is not exactly cheap.
Scoliosis does not have a 100%
cure. There are even people who develop large curves that become physically
life-threatening. The only key to combating scoliosis is EARLY DETECTION.
Unfortunately, we have little or no scoliosis awareness-knowledge in this part
of the world; talk less of identifying its symptoms.
Be aware today about children
with curvy spine. We may not be able to change the entire world - we may not be
able to get rid of scoliosis entirely, but we can definitely make a difference.
That difference is all the change the world needs.
Let's support Scoliosis
Awareness. Together, we are always better!
For more information contact:
National Scoliosis Foundation
The Scoliosis Research Society
Curvy Girls Inc.
