Jan 01, 2002 06:09 AM
4996 Views
(Updated Jan 01, 2002 06:54 AM)
I was born disable, and at age of 11 I started going to Shriners hospital in St Louis, Missouri.
December 1969 I checked in, my mom went back home to Tulsa Oklahoma the same day. I was on warb B in a room of five other girls. They were five rooms on the ward.
Their was a girl there who had a halo traction, what they were going to do to me before my spinal. She was about 11.
She was the first child they had done it in that hospital. I was the second child.
We would teased each other and say she was Miss HALO OF 1969 . Then I was MISS HALO OF 1970.
In February they done my surgery. First they shaved my head. I woke up with screws in my head and weights on the screws, and screws on my ankles with weights on them. I could not moved, only my arms.
They turned me every four hours to the left, to the right, or on my back. They gave me a mirror so I could see.
I went to school, someone pushed my bed and I was given a book. Having an operation and in bed and you couldn't moved still wasn't an excuse to get out of school, after all I could still hold the book.
First of all it did not hurt. Only time it hurt when they put jelly like cream and tighten up the screws, other than no pain.
My parents came for a visit while I was in halo traction. My mom took at picture of me in it. The picture at https://community.webshots.com/user/pam996 in my arthrogyposis multiplex congetia page.
Only bad memory from the halo traction is I wet the bed and the night nurse jumped on me.
In late March I had the spinal. You are on iron board bed. They flip you like a sandwich, by putting another iron board on top and tieing it together and flip.
That part was fun.
The bad thing is when your on your back and the nurse leaves your tray beside you eat the best way you can.
By supper I was on my belly and the tray slides underneath the board on a tray below. I can eat that way, no problem.
After the iron board you are in a body cast and sent home. In April of 1970 I was sent home to lay flat on a bed, no pillow. I was that way until October 1970 and the cast came off and I sat up for the first time since February. I hopped off the bed and walked across the room. They got mad, they said they were suppose to teach me to walk again.
Not bad for a girl who was told she would never walk and at the age of two I did.
If you have a child or know of a child please send them Shriners hospital, they save my life, without the spinal operation I would of have died that year. My spine was turn and twisted so bad, that why I had to have the halo traction first.
It free of any charge.
