For a long time I could tell something was wrong. Whether it was from the constant accidental injuries, the loud popping noise coming from an ankle, after landing wrong from skipping a step at school in fifth grade. Then a few months later spraining the other ankle playing kick ball with my cousins. We left Grandma’s house that day and went to get an x-ray of my foot. The x-ray of my foot led to another x-ray altogether. It led up to the x-ray of my spine. Which inturn diagnosed me with scoliosis.

Scoliosis is a problem with the alignment of the spinal columns. It always displays itself with a curve of the spine in x-rays. I happened to be graced with a double curvature. Instead of having one, I had two, and my spine looked almost like the letter S. 

At the doctor's office I remember them telling me, I was lucky. They usually miss these types of diagnosis this early. It didn’t feel like they caught it early. Catching it early would be catching it before there were two curves, or before it made my spine look like a letter. 

After the shocking revelation at the doctor’s office, I was told to go to a specialist and a person to get me fitted for a brace. I could say without a doubt that I hated my brace, it ruined my plans for Halloween that year. I had to wear it constantly. It started off progressively, three hours a day for a week, then eight, then twelve, then sixteen, then finally twenty-three hours a day. It was miserable to be trapped in a bent sheet of plastic with velcro holding it closed. The only good thing about it was that in the winter it protected me from the frigid wind.

***

Several months later and multiple appointments later, I had my second meeting with my specialist. While I liked the doctor there was one thing he was awful at, punctuality. He was usually late by half an hour at best, at worst an hour. Then in my appointment he looked at my graph and asked how I was doing and left. I didn’t feel like I was a priority to him, how could I? He only spent ten minutes at my appointment. 

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In February my eighth grade year, I heard the greatest news in a long time. I was finally done with my specialist and my brace. It felt like this giant cloud or this massive pause on life, that I had felt for almost two years finally lifted. It was several years after that where I learned something.

I learned that there is no way to get over a problem without a changing period. I believe that those changes might be for better, sometimes for worse. It is those moments spent in a crucible that we experience the change. For me that crucible was two years spent in a brace, and receiving words that shattered my middle school years. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without those moments. It was my crucible, and it founded my belief in change being inevitable.