"You go through a moment while you're in the hospital that you think 'why did I do this? My life was okay before.' Now you're in the hospital doing this. But then, after you start healing, you think, I'm so glad that I did this. It benefits me so well and I wouldn't take it back. A little bit of something now gains a lot of something."

Jolene M's Story

My first doctors said that there would be a 50-percent chance if I did have surgery that be a 50-percent that they would paralyze me and I would never walk again. It probably wouldn't do me any good; that I was just going to pretty much have it for the rest of my life, have osteoporosis way before everybody else -- that was how I was going to live my life.

But I came to Texas and I saw my health-care provider, and she started saying, " I will send you to a specialist." And that's how I saw Dr. Shelokov.

I was really nervous. We looked at my x-rays and he sat me down. He was awesome. He actually had a model of a spine and sat it between his knees and showed me what mine looked like and then showed me what he was going to do and how he would do it. And I felt really comfortable . I knew the moment I met him and the moment I met the staff that I really felt I was in good hands.

If I would have known Dr. Shelokov years ago, then I wouldn't have had to go through the pain and embarrassment that scoliosis does to you . You don't want to be close to people, and you care about what people think. You can't go to the swimming pool without somebody looking at you and staring at you. Stuff like that.

So I went in, they put me to sleep, and I remember waking up and I felt great when I woke up. I mean, I didn't really have any pain, and I remember just eating a cheeseburger and it was like the best cheeseburger I'd ever had because I guess I was out for like three or four days, you know. And then after I got finished eating, they were like "well, how do you feel about going to rehab today?"

And I was like "Already? So soon, you know?"

And they're like "yeah."

So, I was like "all right!" you know.

And they got me up and I walked and went to rehab. I did excellent in rehab. I was there for about four or five days, and they let me go home .

It's not just the physical things that I can do now. To me, it's how I feel about myself and how much more positive I am. I'm not afraid to wear certain clothes anymore and I've only been out of surgery for three months. I don't have to worry about showing my back and walking all crooked, you know. And I'm sure I'm going to be able to do a lot of things like work in the yard and go jogging and do stuff like that without the pain that I had growing up. It's really nice to have that feeling.

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