At 13, I teamed up with my best friend Jill on Halloween: She was a nurse, and I dressed as an injured person. Though we wrapped my body in white gauze and Ace bandages, some of my outfit was not part of the costume. I was in my second month on crutches then, for a painful knee problem that had lingered since August, a case of bone outpacing muscle as it grew.

By spring doctors could explain why my knees had taken so long to improve: My legs didn’t harbor the only bones growing astray. In May 1990, the month of my 14th birthday, I was diagnosed with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. The development, my doctor believed, had further unbalanced my knees. Most cases of scoliosis are mild but a minority are not, and I stumbled headfirst into that category.

Within months the condition worsened. Pain radiated through my back, my ribs, my hips, my chest. Its demands for attention intruded at the most inopportune times: during French class, a Halloween party, gossip about boys.

What I didn’t know then was that kids like me were everywhere.

… continue

From Washington Post (registration requirered)
Pain on a Smaller Scale
Support and Treatment Often Lag for Children With Chronic Pain
By Jennifer Couzin