Stephanie Magness
It’s probably pretty obvious that my life has not completely turned out how I hoped and dreamed it would, but really, who can say their life has traveled this journey exactly how they thought it should?
Before 1994 there wasn’t any indication that my life wasn’t going to read like the most perfect fairy-tale ever. Why shouldn’t it have? I had a great childhood filled with a wonderful family and good friends. Of course hindsight is always 20/20, and there were small, subtle signs pointing to a different kind of life. But nothing to make me, or anyone else, think the fairy-tale ending might crash and burn with a scoliosis diagnosis during a P.E. screening in 7th grade. That’s how it all started, a routine exam in the gym locker room a few months before my thirteenth birthday suddenly morphed into a day I will never forget. Next stop was my pediatrician who pointed out what my parents had already begun to fear…there was something a lot more serious going on to cause my spine to twist into an “S” so quickly that no one had noticed it. The word “neurologic” must have been spoken in that room because a few trips to a couple different neurologists came next.