To those who have found my journal through the website Scoliosis & The Milwaukee Brace, thank you for taking interest in my journal. I'm not sure how I got to be on their site as one of their links but I appreciate any notice of my journal. Not to single out a particular group of people, I appreciate any benign visitor!

In the past I've told you about my scoliosis and how it plays a large role in how my body functions. Just by having scoliosis, it effects how I do some things in my daily life. It's hard to tell whether or not I am holding my head up straight. I prefer sitting propped up on my right elbow on the couch because it is very difficult to do so on my left elbow. My scoliosis curve is in the upper thorasic vertabraes and the curve is on the right side of my back. This curve shifted my rib cage and deformed many of my individual ribs. Because they are deformed, I have breathing problems. With age, the ribs and muscles stiffen and the body gets less oxygen. With less oxygen and more energy needed to breathe harder, the heart weakens. With the heart weakening and the lungs can't keep up, pulmonary hypertension plays a heavy role now for me.

So, would I still have had all these problems with breathing and heart complications if I didn't have scoliosis? Maybe not but I still probably would have been born with the 2 holes in my heart (ASD & VSD).

Makes me wonder about what causes Scoliosis?