How titanium is the end all cure all for aching and misshapen bones. (Or How I learned to stop worrying and finally accpeted the Lord.)

Good day to you, all of the ones and zeroes of the internet! This is the first entry in The Confessions of the Heavy Metal Hunchback, your source for everything there is to know about...well, crap that I've done. Sounds a bit arrogant but I've got some great stuff.

Maybe I should actually start with the whole hunchback thing. Back in 1999 when Pokemon was going hot and Pogs were cooling down I ended up getting diagnosed with Scoliosis. For those who don't know, Scoliosis is just a one word term for an irregular curvature of the spinal column. At first, everything was okay. I could rassle, still play guns in the woods, and hit things with hammers without any consequence. Ah, those were fun times.

Around the latter end of 2000 when my family and I moved from our humble hovel in Ojai, CA to our suburban settlement in Santa Maria, CA, we had noticed that the curvature was getting worse. After a couple years of back braces and false hope, I was told that I would have to undergo corrective surgery. According to the Doc, as long as everything went swimmingly, I would only be in the hospital for three weeks max and would under go two surgeries. As of that moment, the scoliosis (front curve) was at two 35 degree curves. The kyphosis (back curvature) was at an astounding 89 degrees. I'll let that sink in...THAT'S ONE DEGREE AWAY FROM A RIGHT ANGLE!!!

What was my reaction to this? BRING IT ON!!! Basically it was this or die. I don't know about you, but life is pretty fun. So, on the morning of January 8, 2003, my mom and I made the trek to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital to undergo the first of two. After being poked twice to start my food regiment for the next few weeks I was wheeled into the prep room where the nurses asked me if I wanted anything before it was showtime. All I could think to say was, "You know for some reason, I'm really craving pancakes." So, the anesthesiologist comes and tells me everything that's going to happen while I'm awake, which is only for the next two minutes. I say goodbye to my Mom and I get the shot which puts me out for a good twelve hours.

Now, it's down to work, my surgeon (Dr. Richard Kahmann, if you ever need anything done, call this guy!) slices the right side of my open and preceded to deflate my right lung. After the deed was done they cut out one of my ribs and took out a lot of my discs. To this day I don't know how many were taken, but I was told that if I lost another, I would never walk again. So, my rib is grounds into a rough powder...or something, hyper-extended the hunch I had and inserted the bone discs in. When that was all done, they stitched me up with interior stitches, shoved a tube into my chest, covered me in iodine, bandaged me up, and called it a day.

When I awoke from the anesthetic, the first thing I regained control of was my mouth. There's some good news. The nurses heard my croak and asked if I needed anything. I said, "DRUGS!!! NOW!!!" After, what seemed life twenty minutes, I clawed my way through the haze and opened my eyes, completely cognitive. That was hard. I stayed in the ICU until that Friday when I was finally put up in the pediatrics wing. That's right I was in the wing with kids, but I had Nintendo...bagow! That Saturday I got my chest tube out (I think it was Saturday) and I was pumped full of enough drugs to knock out a Varsity football team.

Fast forward to the next Wednesday and it's time for the big one, the whole enchilada. Wednesday January 15, 2003, (the day before my 16th birthday) the day that I had two Harrington rods, along with over 70 pins, screws, needles and spring grafted onto my spine to keep me from collapsing in on myself. I am put under for 16 hours on this one. Forty eight welding electrode and twenty three rolls of duct tape later, I am essentially good as new! Again they use the interior stitches. Three days later, I'm back in my room and my Physical Therapists walk in and I proceed to roll over and make my daily round down the hall of pediatrics so I can learn to walk...again. As I roll over they tell me very quickly to stop, I look down and notice that my bed is COMPLETELY CRIMSON! I ask what I deal was and they called in my Doc. After a quick examination, it turns out that my stitches didn't take and I had been leaking fluid and being in danger of splitting open in bed for the last few days. Great.

On Monday I'm scheduled for one more trip under the scalpel. Dr. Kahmann tells me that they going to fillet me open, clean me out, take culture for a possible Post-Op infection, and stitch me up with one hundred and fifty nylon stitches. I ask him what would happen if I had an infection and he tells me that they would keep for another month, I would have to have another surgery and if it didn't subside with the antibiotics, I would probably die. Wow, Doc, thanks! So, I'm sitting in my bed, face to face with my own mortality for the first real time in my life and the only thing I could think to do is watch Conan O'Brien (this was when Comedy Central would run the reruns.) and laugh myself silly.

Wednesday January 22, 2003, I'm wheeled into the O.R. for one last run, my life literally in the hands of the best orthopedic surgeon in California. No pressure, Doc. They give me a thorough cleaning and stitch me up, all of which took nearly five hours, not too bad. When I come to, I ask my doctor what the odds are that I will have a post-op. He puts his hand on my shoulder and says that's it's pretty much certain, 99.9 percent. Needless to say that my mood dropped exponentially for the next few days. Saturday January 25, 2003, I'm sitting in my room watching some stand up and watching the nurses wheel in a cart of very very strong antibiotics. About twelve in the afternoon I get a phone call from Dr. Kahmann, he was at a medical conference in San Francisco for the weekend, and he says to me, "Matt, the cultures from you back came back from the lab. The results are negative. Call you family and pack you bags, you're going home today."

I was positively ecstatic. I called my dad and told him to come and get me, he was there in a matter of an hour. I grabbed all my stuff and bid the nurses a fond farewell. It took nearly six months, lots of pain, and some opium addiction to recover to the point where I could go outside. Afterwords, I decided to think about my near infection what could have saved me from a fate...wait, it was death, disregard that last part. After months of going over the math, I realized I couldn't divide by zero and at that moment I decided, without a shadow of a doubt that there was indeed a God. There has to be, in no way could chance has kept a certainty from being completely nullified from existing. It was and is a fantastic feeling.

At this moment, I must say, that this is the end of this story, but there are plenty of other I can tell in the coming time. My nearly falling into the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, and even Washington D.C. All are great tales and all will be told at some point.

So, until next time, keep on keeping on and remember Rule 32: Enjoy the little things.