cheech

When I was eleven years old, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. I stood in my underwear in a long queue of girls in the school gym. A doctor was to examine all of us and decide if we were fit to do physical education
Tell your parents you are not fit to take this class. You have scoliosis, a deformity of the spine. If I have a deformity, it means I am deformed, I thought, and the news crushed me. I was indeed to become deformed in the two years my condition worsened
Scoliosis is a rotation of the vertebrae that results in twisting of the spine, which pushes the rib cage, the hips, everything out of line
To correct my scoliosis, I was attached to a special machine by the neck and hips and pulled in opposite directions. Once the maximum correction was obtained, I was put in a cast. A few weeks later, after my body had given in to that stretch, skin and veins elongated, I was stretched a little more and wrapped in another cast. This was all done while I was awake, without painkillers, because the maximum correction that can be obtained depends on how much pain a patient can endure- the stretching stopped when I passed out. The cast went from my hips all the way up to the back of my head. The pressure of the cast made my bite so tight that my teeth could have been pushed back into the jawbone. For that, I had to have a special brace to keep my teeth in order. After four months of this treatment, my S-shaped spine was corrected and fixed straight with an operation that consisted of a bone transplant taken from my leg. Thirteen of my vertebrae were fused together. After this operation, I have to stay in bed for six months with a cast on my torso to restrict all movement and allow the bones to fuse together, and a cast on my leg to allow the bone to grow back. I was then allowed to stand up, but, still wearing the cast on my torso, I had to relearn how to walk. Six months after that, when the last cast was removed, my head hung from my neck like a chicken until I reeducated those muscles as well.
My mother was very worried and disturbed by my illness. She gave up work and stayed with me until I got well, two years later. I was moved by her decision and felt guilty about taking her away from what she loved so much- acting. Maybe it was then that I learned one can wish for opposite things that can never be reconciled; I wanted my mother to be with me, but at the same time I wanted her not to give up working on account of me. The resolution to never, ever be a weight on anybodys life again gave me the determination and strong drive to become independent. And I did
Obviously I am proud of being a model- its a great feeling of having conquered the odds- from deformed to one of the most beautiful women in the world, as I am sometimes described. Dont be modest, just say it come on often described, one of my voices from the beyond, maybe my mother or an aunt, encourages me to say. So, let me phrase it again as I am often described. I have often felt reluctant to talk a lot about my illness, because great wisdom is expected to come out of disease, disgrace, and pain, and I dont think I got any wisdom out of my scoliosis. When asked in interviews, What is the lesson you learned in your two years of illness? I would answer, That health is the most important thing. I am grateful every day to walk, to see, to talk. But this answer, though it is absolutely true and correct, seems made for the kind of trash journalism that promotes trash wisdom and trash culture, that goes with trash music and trash food, and I have blushed every time Ive used it. Mostly, my illness gave me an orgy of emotions that, especially at the beginning, I didnt know how to organize and give meaning to.

-- Isabella Rosselini, Some Of Me