Glad things are going to plan.

Haha, no my kids aren’t quite old enough for college yet. I should have explained better. The go to a classical education based school that is structured like traditional English schools. Think of Harry Potter and the house system they follow. It’s the same thing, but obviously different names and color themes. Instead of quidditch, they have powder puff football and other house games throughout the school year. .
The Scolibrace is coming along. I still have a love hate relationship with it. I was not able to wear it for the first several days after surgery, in part because of my ankle pain and inability to find any comfortable position; but also because of the plate and screws, using my knee scooter was way to painful. I was using a wheelchair, which kept me from wearing my back brace for multiple reasons. In spite of all my pain meds, my back was really starting to hurt again, so I did start wearing it at night and then during the morning for as long as I could tolerate it. When I first visited my back doctor over the summer, before knowing the extent of my scoliosis, he had told me about all the adult brace wear-time options and their goals. 4 hours daily for pain management (I did not experience that during my break-in period), 12 hours daily to maintain my current curves without worsening them, and 20-23 hours for curve reduction. I figured if I could get at least 12 hours of daily wear, I wouldn’t get any worse. What I found was that I think I pretty much lost most of what I had gained the first couple of months of brace wear in my first post op week. After about 8-9 hours of wear, I had the same pain and feeling of my back shifting as I had during my break in period every single morning; and my back pain in the evening was reminiscent of the pain I previously described of the unshifting that originally pushed me to quicken my break in schedule. Last week I bit the bullet and jumped back into full time wear. For the most part, I’m getting 20 hours or more in, though some days it’s only 18. I do try to make up that time the next day, but don’t know if that actually makes a difference. It does feel like I am starting everything all over again with the pain I have been having. When I first started wearing my Scolibrace I found the undershirts they provided to be too hot, so I wore fitted tank tops underneath. With the increased amount of sitting I’ve been relegated to, I started wearing fitted t-shirts. Now that the weather is cooling, I started wearing long sleeve shirts underneath. When I’m at home, I don’t wear any other shirt over my brace as there is no reason to. I only do so when I'm out and about. I’m not sure that will ever change. My girls are extremely prominent and and the hole in the side and back of my brace draw way more attention than I am comfortable with. Given my recent setback, I have to wonder how long my full time wear will last and if I will be relegated to a lifetime wear of 12 hours daily to prevent any relapses. Only time will tell. Regardless, at this point I don’t think I will ever agree to undergo any spinal fusion surgeries. I can’t imagine never being able to bend my back - even if only for a few hours a day. I have gained a lot of sympathy for those who have undergone such surgeries, and realize that not everyone’s situation allows them any other choice.

Thank you for the update!  That’s a bummer that you lost a little progress, but you will make it right back up.  I hope your recovery continues smoothly.

Thank you very much for an interesting update.

You are very brave and I wish you every possible success of your treatments.

A big thank to you for sharing with us your health journey ! you are so brave, not only to endure the pain but also to be so resilient and compliant about your health issues and the way to fix them, even if it's invasive and visible.

Did you manage to get a regular full time wear of your back brace ? Do you think it'll be easier to assume it with time ?

Just a curiosity. I don't if it happened yet (before the leg cast) but if you have to go out and get well dressed for a night at the restaurant or any event, do you keep the brace or you choose to make an exception for your treatment ?

Best wishes !

My respect again! With your attitude you deserve every success possible!

Have a good Thanksgiving!

It’s been a few weeks since my last post. My ankle continues to heal. I’m scheduled to get my cast off on Monday and transition back into a boot, albeit bigger than my previous one. I’m hoping I will be allowed to try my luck with partial weight bearing as tolerated, but I’ll have to wait for Monday to find out. I’ll also have my right foot molds taken for my new ankle brace. I’ll find out on Monday what that will look like as well. I have a feeling I’ll have whatever it is on my left ankle at some point to prevent more injuries in the future once my rehab progresses.
On the braces front, yep I have a latex allergy. My elastics were changed to the synthetic type and bumped up to 12 hour of daily wear in the same Class 2 configuration. I don’t like the synthetic elastics. They seem very brittle and break like every 2 hours. I was wearing them at night, but with the elastics breaking so often, I don’t want to swallow or inhale them, so I’m wearing them during the day now. My bite blocks were slightly ground down further, even though my TMJ is flaring. It’s worsened more with the 4 extra hours of elastic wear. I don’t want to have to fork over $1000 for Botox injections to try to get some pain relief. Who has that kind of money? My orthodontist noticed my reverse swallow and let me know if I don’t resolve my tongue thrusting issue I will be seeing her every 5 years. She asked how I felt about tongue tamers. I told her they didn’t work. She asked how long I wore them. I said a few months and she asked me if I was willing to try them for a year. I agreed knowing they won’t help. She only bonded 2 on the top and not 4 as I had last time. I’ve been struggling with this for years. It’s been less than a week and my tongue has already found its forward happy place between my teeth in a no poking spot. They don’t even affect my speech very much. Trust me when I say I’ve been trying all the tricks with lifesavers and tic tacs with proper tongue posture, but as soon as I try to swallow, my tongue has a mind of its own.I have my regular teeth cleaning with my dentist in a few weeks and will be back at my orthodontist before and after to have my wires removed and replaced. I admit that I love being able to floss normally the few times a year I get my teeth cleaned. I also love teeth cleanings. Every cleaning, it’s like an itch I didn’t know you needed scratched. It took me years to find a dentist I was comfortable with after having so many terrible experiences with anesthesia not working. My dentist believes me when I tell him I can still feel everything after getting lidocaine. He uses articaine instead, and it’s the first time in my life that I didn’t feel every detail of what was being done in my mouth. I’m resistant to lidocaine no matter where it’s used. Can you imagine getting stitches in your finger and feeling it? Try medial branch nerve ablations for herniated discs, same thing. It’s been brutal at times. Anyway, I’ll touch bases with my orthodontist during my wiring appointment and let her see the ineffectiveness of the tongue tamers.
On the back brace front, I can’t wait to start walking again so I don’t feel so unbalanced while wearing my brace using my scooter. I’m so fortunate to not have fallen over by now. I’ve been very cautious while trying to get around. The worst is getting in and out of the car while wearing my back brace and getting on and off the scooter. There have been some harrowing moments where I should have just toppled over, but managed to stay upright. I’m averaging 18-19 hours of wear a day. Not the 20 I should be getting, but my doctor is happy with that given my mobility challenges.
I continue to keep trying. I still despise sitting in it, and my arms still go numb occasionally. I was struggling wrapping Christmas presents the other day. My supplies needed to be within reach at all times since I can’t twist to grab things, nor can I really lean forward to pick things up. It was challenging and took so much longer to wrap each gift. It was definitely a process. I’m just happy with this less than ideal wear time, I am not having the horrible back pain I had when breaking it in the first time and then again after my ankle surgery. I’m truly grateful for that.
I’ll try to update next week after I get my cast off on how that part of all this is going.
https://dereferer.me/?https://noreferrer.me/?https://dereferer.me/?https://imgur.com/a/MwXZDXT

I simply hope that everything turns out good in the long run for you. You have so much going on all at the same time, plus the holidays on top of it all.

I have tongue tamers on my fake braces I don't notice they are there, even when swallowing.

Have a great holiday and best wishes for 2024!