His Brace Holds His Back...Not Him Back

At the age of seven, Michael is faced with a life-changing illness.  He was diagnosed with juvenile scoliosis.  How does he handle it?  How does his family deal with the decade-long sentence that lies ahead.  

Transcript

I didn’t really understand what scoliosis was. All I knew was that on August 8, 2006, Michael, at the age of seven, was diagnosed with juvenile scoliosis. When he went to the specialist in Michigan, he was a couple of bad doctor reports away from spinal surgery. And the surgeries to treat scoliosis looked horrific. There were metal growth rods, pins, Midwest, wires, and multiple surgeries along the way as he grew. Initially, I wasn’t concerned about basketball or any elite sport. That was the farthest thing from my mind at the time. Rather, I was concerned about Michael playing outside, running around with his friends, dealing with the psychological effects of being different, and the long and tenuous road ahead. He was so little to have been given this sentence by God. He did nothing wrong. While I knew it wasn’t a life-threatening illness like some of the dreaded diseases that inflict children, this was a rough set of cards to have been dealt. The future was truly unknown. 

There was only one option. Michael had to wear a back brace from this point forward until he stopped growing, sometime around seventeen years old. Ten years of preventive treatment, if we are lucky. Ten years of praying. Ten years of growth. Ten years of doctor’s appointments. Ten years of twisting, bending, and manipulating his spine. Ten years of wearing a brace twenty of the twenty-four hours in the day. This brace was a hard, plastic-turtle-shelled, full-torso contraption with three wide Velcro straps in the back that looped around a metal locking system and pulled as tight as possible. It had several extremely hard “pads” that pressed against his spine in strategic places and from multiple directions to squeeze it and keep it from bending and twisting further in the wrong direction. We had to actually redirect the growth of the bones that made up his spine. His curve was also three-dimensional, so his correction was particularly challenging. He had the classic S-curve as well as a spinal twist that created a visible hump on his shoulder (at least, it was visible to me). 

All I could think of was that scene from the movie Young Frankenstein when Dr. Frankenstein looked at Igor and said, “You know, I’m a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump.” To which Igor looks at him with those beady eyes and responds, “What hump?” 

Initially, we were not sure how to handle this situation. We did not know when he should wear it and when he should take it off. We did not know whether or not he should play sports with it. So, there we were, on the soccer field that first week after he started wearing the brace. He was out there, a big kid anyway, but now, under his shirt, had the equivalent of gilded armor. We knew it. He knew it. No one else knew it. We called it his superhero armor. He had the soccer ball, dribbling down the sideline as slow and awkward as ever, and this tiny little shit came running up to him to steal the ball. The kid was skilled, coordinated, and fast. He knew how to play. It was a great soccer move on his part. But he had no idea what hit him. Or rather, he had no idea what he hit.

He slammed into Michael and bounced off him like he was a pinball wizard hitting a bumper and slamming onto the floor. Michael was standing there, with the soccer ball, and the kid was sitting on the ground looking up at him wondering what just happened. If a kid ever had a look of “What the fuck just happened to me?” that was it. Michael smiled and started running again, dribbling the ball with more confidence than ever. He loved this armor. It was going to work well for him. He was ultimately more than a little disappointed when we told him he could no longer wear his superhero armor when playing sports. 

While everyone knew Michael wore a back brace, none of the kids he played hoops with had an issue with it. Other than one incident at summer camp, where Michael took care of business by kicking some bunkmate’s ass for making fun of him, the boys around Michael were kind and helpful. They didn’t care. Many of Michael’s teammates helped him put the brace on or take it off when needed. 

We were concerned that he would not develop the muscle to support his basketball activities. We were concerned that he would get injured often as a result of his disease. The treatments and exercises we all focused on to help him were stretching, core work, strength training, and body work in the form of therapeutic massages. I supported all of it as often as needed, and Michael found his peeps. He was not shy. He had hours and hours of work. He spent countless hours strengthening his core, getting his body massaged, and preparing for hoops. And when we got ready to play, I taught him how to stretch before a game. Before each game, we went through a routine that started with moving his head and neck side to side, rolling right and left. His shoulders and triceps, his core twisting right and left, forward and back. His back bending forward and backward. His quadriceps and hips, hamstrings, and knees. He ended with stretching his calves and ankles. It was the same routine every time. It was important to repeat this ten-minute routine so he could learn from it and ultimately do it on his own. Between the stretching, the strengthening, and the bracing, I think we had it covered. 

When Michael went to Michigan for his final doctor’s visit, on September 4, 2015, it was an emotional moment. He was released from prison. He was done. He was not cured, because there was no cure. But he was done. From that point forward, nothing held him back. Nothing could keep him from working out any hour of the day or night. He was freed of his turtle-like plastic straitjacket. His scoliosis did not hold him back.