Sophomore Rachel Brosten stays positive despite challenges
Jolie Boget, Yearbook Reporter
Originally published January 9, 2015
Tess Sonntag
Sophomore Rachel Brosten was diagnosed with scoliosis at the age of eight. Her doctors stated her case was so severe they hadn’t seen another like it. For years she wore a brace until finally surgery was imperative to straighten her back.
Walking in the halls she looks like any other ordinary teenage girl, but sophomore Rachel Brosten has a story.
At the young age of eight, she was diagnosed with scoliosis, a medical condition causing an abnormal curvature of the spine. After noticing a variance, doctors began performing routine check ups and X-rays.
Brosten’s spine was curved, so she had to wear a plastic back brace from fourth grade through seventh grade. “I had to velcro myself in and I had to have it on for 18 hours a day. I had to sleep in it…it was tough,” Brosten said. “When they finally checked it again it had gotten worse.”
Brosten was so young when she found out she had a potentially life threatening condition she didn’t understand what it truly meant.
“I thought ‘Okay cool, I get to wear this corset thing for like a year,’” Brosten said. “I wasn’t like ‘Oh no, this is bad.’ I didn’t know what it was.”
Brosten’s condition continued to worsen. Her spine had twisted into an ‘S’ curve.
“They told my family they hadn’t really ever seen anything like it,” Brosten said. “They said that I had to go into spinal fusion surgery to fix it, which is where they take a titanium rod and literally screw it into your spine to straighten your back out.”
The surgery took place on Jan. 9, 2012. Brosten’s scar reaches from the top of her back down to about three inches above her bottom.
“I’m going to have this for the rest of my life and I can’t bend over at all anymore, except at the two vertebrae that are left there,” she said.
Brosten was lucky no brain damage occurred, but she did have what her doctor called “a size ten brain in a size nine skull.”
“That meant that my brain was pressing down on the top of my spinal cord. There is supposed to be fluid constantly rotating from your spine through your brain and back out, but for me there was some stuck in there,” Brosten said.
Brosten’s disorder, called syringomyelia, meant she needed surgery between her head and the base of her neck. The doctors had to shave off a piece of bone in order for her brain to have enough room.
For six months Brosten couldn’t carry over five pounds at a time. In the process of recovery, she finally returned to school. Brosten thought positively during this time by focusing on the success of the surgery.
“The doctors were really impressed with the recovery since I could do a lot of things they didn’t really think I would have been able to do so fast,” Broston said. “Everything’s fine! And now I have great posture, I can’t slump anymore!”
