Contest Winner
Rose Eclipse
I was thirteen years old when I learned that I had to wear a back brace to avoid surgery, yet as I sit here writing this piece as a college student I can’t recall any of my memories about that time. I only know that it was during my junior high experience when I had to wear a uniform that made it easy for students to see something was flawed with my upper body. Other than that, it’s as if that point in my life is a blank page.
Well, maybe. I do recall the uncomfortableness that I had to live through every day for those two years. Once I received the one-of-a-kind back brace from the doctor who made it, my mom seemed to rejoice knowing that my back may be saved. Unlike me, my mom never had her chance. Her back looks like Frankenstein’s with all of the scars she has from the multiple surgeries she has endured since the age of twelve. There was no reversing what happened with her curvature, so the doctors went in, put in the rods and screws, and now if they were ever to snap out of place, her spine would collapse and crush her organs.
Very morbid, I know, but as soon as I put on that back brace for the first time, I knew I needed something to reassure myself. The back brace looked like a sarcophagus with its hard outer blue surface, and the white cushion on the inside. I’d later know they put that in there so it could soak up all the sweat from my body and make me feel like I was in a sauna every time I’d wake up and go to sleep for two years. Although when I put it on for the first time in the doctor’s office, the discomfort had yet to set in. I was trying to comfort myself that wearing the brace was just the cards that I was dealt because, in reality, my life could be worse. I could be on a surgery table, being torn open and becoming Frankenstein as well, instead of walking out of the orthotist’s doors. I was lucky enough to be the walking mummy with its sarcophagus.
But I can’t lie. The first days were hard as anyone could imagine. I was a thirteen-year-old girl going through puberty with this back brace digging into my pelvis every time I sat down, which made me have to learn how to work around dealing with my menstrual period in a new way. It taught me the ridiculous amount of time I had to clean my brace. Every day after school, I had to clean it, or it just made my life miserable the next day knowing that I was walking in the previous day’s sweat. But those were just the cards that I was dealt.
It was the first day of school at El Camino Junior High in California, which was the literal definition of ghetto. Prison bars surrounded the school, most of the buildings were made out of brick because it was built in 1931, and students wore uniforms because parents voted for them because, if we didn’t, according to them, we were hood rats. Yeah, we get it. We’re Mexicans. What’s a uniform going to do to stop that? But even with those standards, the school faculty was able to tolerate the challenge I brought to them: How was I going to wear a back brace in P.E.? Turns out, I didn’t have to during that hour. The nurses in the office and the P.E. teacher figured out a way for me to take off my back brace and still make it to classes on time.
As soon as my back brace was wrenched off, it felt like I was released from my chains. My upper body was a bit sweaty, but my ribs were grateful. I was able to bend my back how I liked, and sit without something digging into my pelvis or right armpit. I was even able to breathe without my stomach feeling like a python was wrapped around it. It was amazing to feel human, even if it was just for a second.
Except when I had to run for P.E. Sure, the exercises were fine, they were good for my zig-zag of a spine, but when I had to run, that was another story. The teacher had us run six laps because our running track was a dirt track that looked like it was straight out of Mcfarland U.S.A. Nobody wanted to be behind the fast kids because rocks would fly toward you like a BB-gun pellet.
I hated running because the faster I ran, the more out of breath I’d get, and then my lungs would begin to hurt and sweat would drip down my face. I’d cough while the teacher cheered us on, timing us as I held onto my ribs. That was another thing—my scoliosis made my ribs pop out because my spine was trying to crush my organs and unbalance everything. So if anyone really paid attention to me, they could notice one side bulged out more than the other, especially when I bent down. By the time I was finished with those six laps, my whole body was sweating and made me dread going back into that back brace waiting for me in the nurse’s office.
They never gave us P.E clothes to change into, so I was stuck wearing that sweat-drenched white and blue uniform all day. The bell rang as students passed me to go to their classes or find a hiding spot somewhere on campus to ditch. Some were just lingering in the halls talking to their friends about whatever chisme they found, whether it be about family or a teacher, who knows. Meanwhile, I walked to the office, trying to take every step one at a time. It didn’t help much because before I knew it, I opened the office door and was welcomed in by the nurse who was already waiting for me.
There sat my back brace on one of their counters in broad daylight for any student to see. It felt like a bag of rocks in my hands as the nurse ushered me into the bathroom. She locked the door while I pulled up the white polo shirt that I couldn’t tuck in anymore as soon as the back brace surrounded the upper half of my body.
“Give me just a minute, dear,” the nurse said as she grabbed the first strap of three and tightened it.
The sound of velcro ripping apart reached my ears as I resisted the urge to shudder when the back brace began to feel like a straight jacket. The bathroom mirror was the worst place to look, seeing myself become surrounded and tamed, losing confidence in myself with each pull of the velcro. I was a toy being wound up as my hunched shoulders began to straighten. The sweat from P.E. made my body feel sticky once the nurse tightened all three straps, as I was back to being a mummy inside its sarcophagus. Confined in my own body, as if I had never been free in the first place. Everyone else got to be, so why not me?
The nurse helped me pull my polo shirt back down over my back brace and smiled.
“There you are,” she said and unlocked the bathroom door. “Just in time, you got five minutes still.”
“Thanks,” I said before grabbing my rolling backpack from underneath her desk.
I sighed when the backpack sounded like a thunderstorm behind me as if to make me stand out more. The students that were still wandering around looked at me with judgemental eyes, probably because I didn’t have to tuck in my shirt as everyone else did. Everyone hated that rule because we were all used to the freedom of an untucked shirt. I wish I only had to worry about an untucked shirt.
It would be a year into wearing my back brace when it became more tolerable, almost like a part of myself. I no longer minded the feeling of something digging into my pelvis or my shoulders, nor sleeping in a brace. I used to cry myself to sleep, knowing that I couldn’t get away from a problem by sleeping. Eventually, when I saw my mom’s back enough times, I knew I didn’t want that for myself. My back brace was the only thing that was saving me from my genetics.
The back brace no longer felt like a python; rather it’d become my shield that I’d come to appreciate. I no longer wanted to depend on the nurse, so when it came time for P.E. class to be over, I grabbed each velcro strap one at a time and stretched my hands behind my back, pulling till I was able to wear it without being too confined. That, or my friends would do it for me. The first time they tried to, they thought they were going to hurt me; with every pull of the straps they felt like they’d crush me. No, my spine was doing that for me.
One of them, Elizabeth, who’d been my friend since elementary school, was my ride or die. If I dropped something on the ground by accident, she’d pick it up for me, already knowing that if I bent down, I would have trouble getting back up from the weight of the brace. It wasn’t heavy, although it did weigh you down from how upright it kept you. But even so, when I would have my bad days and get frustrated because I didn’t want to be imprisoned anymore, or when I’d get ticked off easily, which caused arguments between my mom and me, Elizabeth reassured me that I only had one more year. Three hundred and sixty-five more days and no longer would I be detained from my freedom.
A few days into August of the same year, I’d started to do Ballet Folklorico for the first time with Elizabeth, who’d been doing it since elementary school. Usually, I wouldn’t be able to do any extracurriculars, but my curvature was down to twenty instead of twenty-two, stable enough for me to take the brace off for two extra hours. Finally, I was done staying home 24/7 and staring at the video games that I’d long since beaten. Mario saving Princess Peach didn’t comfort me anymore, nor did Batman stopping the Joker distract me from my reality. I couldn’t just sit in front of a TV anymore in my four-walled room, hoping my back would be saved overnight. So, Ballet Folklorico became my haven.
I memorized dance steps with fast-paced Mexican music and Elizabeth by my side. She was my dance partner for every routine we did, teasing me because I didn’t know the steps. She was even the man in the dance because there were no males that signed up for the club. Elizabeth allowed me to feel more human than a walking mummy when she twirled me around, and never looked at me with concern or fear that I was moving too fast for my back to handle. She was just the friend I needed when everyone at home was worried that my curvature was getting worse when I wasn’t wearing the back brace.
Years later here I am in college, writing this, claiming I don’t remember anything about wearing that god-forsaken back brace. But to be honest, I’ve just wanted to forget the feeling, because every time I think back to it, my skin crawls. Repression just made it easy to go about my day. Yet, after I’d gotten out of that back brace, once my curvature was at a safe enough degree, I still kept the brace for four years. It collected dust as it stood in my closet waiting for me to use it again. I never needed to. I blocked it out of my mind until I began packing to move away for college in Montana. A trash bag and totes surrounded me as I stared at the back brace. Was I ready to throw away something that made me who I was today?
Although I hate to admit it, that back brace gave me a whole lot of confidence that I carry today. I can stand tall and face anything that life throws at me because I was able to avoid surgery. Despite having struggled, I made it. I was able to graduate junior high without wearing that brace, not caring what other people thought of me having a rolling backpack that was as loud as a thunderstorm.
That day in my room, I pulled the velcro straps apart and got up off the floor. There in front of my closet door was the same mirror I’d looked into when I came home from the doctor who’d made it for me. I pulled back the back brace, squeezing myself inside of it to return to an old friend that hugged my body tightly, as if scared I was going to leave.
“It still fits you?” Elizabeth asked when she walked into my empty room that used to have Marilyn Monroe posters and Pop Figurines on the walls. “I thought you got rid of it ages ago.”
“I got rid of the first one,” I said, trying to tighten the velcro in the back. “You know, I had to sleep with this on.”
“I know. You went to my house before sleeping in it.” Behind me, she slapped my hands away from the velcro and tightened it for me. “Looked uncomfortable, but you managed it.”
“Remember when you punched me, thinking I was still wearing it?” I asked when she was done.
“It wasn’t my fault!” she said. “I thought you weren’t supposed to take it off ever.”
We used to joke that if there were a school shooting, I would be the safest person in the school. Probably not the greatest thing to think about, but it made being confined easier. Yet at that moment, as I stared in the mirror wearing the back brace, I smiled. My prison had actually been my savior, even if the back pain was still there.
After another moment or two, I knew I needed to make a choice rather than just staring into the mirror as if the back brace were going to become part of my actual skin so I could take it with me. The outer blue surface reflected its shield that protected me from surgery four years ago, and here I was, about to rid myself of my shield. I didn’t have any room for it in any of the totes, so I slowly peeled it off my body, releasing its hold on me. The back brace and I were old friends that went through puberty together, went through every challenge I faced during junior high; it allowed me to live my life without any harm coming my way. Even so, my old friend couldn’t come with me because I no longer needed it. I was safe and stable now. We weren’t one and the same anymore.
Now, I’m in college, where it’s colder than anywhere else I’ve traveled. This makes it harder to get up in the morning because of how much pain my back is in or how stiff it gets when I sit for too long. My ribs still pop out like my angel wings were made earlier than expected, but I’d rather deal with those things than have rods and screws in my back that can snap at any time. Sometimes I do regret throwing that back brace away because it felt like I gave a piece of myself away. But I needed to live a life without my savior shielding me. I finally had the freedom I desired, regardless of the harm that comes my way.
Rose Eclipse likes to write creative garbàge and watch cartoons in her free time when she isn’t studying for classes. She is currently trying to earn her degree in creative writing and English education at Rocky Mountain College.
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