{"id":61496,"date":"2013-10-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-freshman-helps-write-book-about-coping-with-scoliosis-as-a-girl\/"},"modified":"2013-10-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T00:00:00","slug":"uri-freshman-helps-write-book-about-coping-with-scoliosis-as-a-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/10\/uri-freshman-helps-write-book-about-coping-with-scoliosis-as-a-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 freshman helps write book about coping with scoliosis as a girl"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tLong Island resident seeks degree in health studies to help others with the condition<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 16, 2013 \u2013 They called her \u201cbrace freak.\u201d They\u2019d swipe her brace in the locker room and refuse to give it back. At lunch, no one would sit with her; they thought her scoliosis was contagious.<\/p>\n


\nRachel Mulvaney did what any middle school kid would do faced with all that teasing: she cried. The loneliness was awful. The brace felt like a turtle shell around her torso. She wondered, \u201cWhy me?\u201d<\/p>\n


\nStill, she plowed through those painful years, turning a devastating experience into a force for change with the publication this summer of a book she helped write, Straight Talk with the Curvy Girls: Scoliosis \u2013 Brace Yourself for What You Need to Know.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe grow up in a Barbie doll society where girls always have to look perfect,\u201d says Mulvaney, now a 19-year-old freshman at the 溏心vlog免费B站. \u201cScoliosis impacts a girl in a negative way. I want girls with scoliosis to stop hating their bodies, to eliminate that Barbie doll society we constantly live in.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tIn Straight Talk, Mulvaney and eight other young women describe in personal essays what it\u2019s like to have an illness that causes their spine to grow curved instead of straight, requiring them to wear a plastic brace for 16 to 23 hours a day for several years during middle school and high school.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe girl who was once outgoing and happy was quickly disappearing,\u201d Mulvaney writes in her essay. \u201cThe colors began fading away as I felt myself falling into this dark hole. Sleep became my great escape. I felt that if I were sleeping, it would be fewer hours awake in the brace.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tMulvaney says the response to the book, self-published by her mother and another parent whose daughter also has scoliosis, has been positive. Thousands of copies have been sold worldwide, not only to patients, but also to orthopedists, physical therapists, and orthotists, the people who make the braces. <\/p>\n


\nIn addition to the memoirs, the book also includes mothers\u2019 accounts of the frustration and sadness they feel seeing their daughters in emotional and physical pain, as well as details about the latest medical treatments, physical therapy and surgery options, and even dressing tips for girls who wear braces.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe hope this book helps parents and kids on their journey,\u201d says Mulvaney, who is majoring in health studies so she can pursue a career involving scoliosis. \u201cI wanted to give back the unconditional support I received during my time of need, and participating in this book is one way of doing that.\u201d <\/p>\n


\n\tHer other way involves a nonprofit support group, Curvy Girls, which started off as a chapter with only Mulvaney and three other girls and has expanded to 55 chapters in 35 states and four countries, including Brazil, Canada, and Australia. Mulvaney is working with a Rhode Island girl to start a group in the state.<\/p>\n

Mulvaney was 9 when she was first diagnosed with scoliosis. She and her third-grade classmates on Long Island were in the nurse\u2019s office for a routine screening. \u201cWhen she raised my shirt, she gasped,\u201d Mulvaney says. \u201cEveryone came, had their evaluation, and left with a lollipop. I had to be retested, so I sat behind my class and waited.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHer parents took her to an orthopedic surgeon, who suggested keeping an eye on her. Eventually, her back started to ache. One day, her mother lifted her shirt. Another gasp. At 11, she was fitted for a brace \u2013 \u201cThe worst experience of my life.\u201d She wept, as an orthotist tightened the straps and told her to \u201csuck in your stomach\u201d and \u201chold your breath.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \tHer years of \u201cbracing\u201d had begun. She wore the brace, made of hard plastic, 16 hours a day \u2013 at school, during extracurricular activities, at friends\u2019 houses. \u201cI could barely breathe,\u201d she says. \u201cEven eating was difficult.\u201d With no flexibility, a simple thing like picking up a dropped pen was a project.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe teasing was relentless. \u201cI see your brace \u2013 weirdo,\u201d was just one of many unkind remarks hurled at her in middle school. To make things worse, her brace didn\u2019t fit properly; it was so tight it left bruises on her body. The screws holding the brace together poked holes in her shirts. She sank into a depression. \u201cI just felt so small,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n


\n\tHer life changed in 2006 when she met another Long Island girl with scoliosis, Leah Stoltz, who started Curvy Girls. Mulvaney was reborn at the first meeting. \u201cIt felt so incredible to be in a room with other girls who had the same feelings I had,\u201d she says. \u201cI realized I wasn\u2019t alone.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThey talked about how to deal with bullies (ignore them), how to dress (wear layers and leggings), and where to find the latest treatment methods (ask a lot of questions). Mulvaney attended a meeting of Curvy Girls every month for the next three years. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt changed my life,\u201d she says. \u201cOne of the things that made me so proud to be part of this group was that there were no clicks, no popular girls, no mean girls, just girls with scoliosis whose goal was to help each other.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAt 14, her doctors decided that her spine was healthy enough to stop treatment. Her brace came off. She still does back exercises every day and will for the rest of her life, but the turtle shell is gone. Her goal now is to help other young girls cope with the disease.<\/p>\n


\n\tMulvaney says the cause of most scoliosis is unknown. Genetics play a role, but, even then, the disease\u2019s origin is still a mystery. Boys and girls both get the disease, but the illness tends to progress into puberty with girls.<\/p>\n


\n\tThanks in part to a shout-out on Nickelodeon\u2019s annual \u201cTeenNick Helping and Leading Others Awards,\u201d Curvy Girls is thriving and has its own website, curvygirlsscoliosis.com. The group hosted a scoliosis convention last year on Long Island and is planning a second gathering next summer.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been incredible to take something that started off so negative and turn it into something so positive,\u201d says Mulvaney. \u201cIt\u2019s funny; people ask me if I would ever take anything back. I\u2019d never take anything back. Everything that happened to me makes me who I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tCopies of Straight Talk are available for $21.95 through Straight Talk<\/a>. For information about Curvy Girls, contact Mulvaney at ramulvaney94@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI want girls to know that they\u2019re never alone,\u201d says Mulvaney. \u201cNo matter how difficult this journey seems, they can overcome it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWhat happened to Mulvaney\u2019s old brace? She still has it. She takes it with her when she talks to middle school students about bullying. The brace is a \u201cprop,\u201d she says, but it\u2019s really so much more.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above:

\nRachel Mulvaney, 19, a freshman at the 溏心vlog免费B站 who helped write a book about coping with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. Mulvaney, of Mount Sinai, N.Y., is majoring in health studies at 溏心vlog免费B站; her minor is leadership studies. Photo by Mike Salerno Photography.<\/p>\n


\nScans of Rachel Mulvaney\u2019s spine, before (left) and after (right) treatment. Photo courtesy of Rachel Mulvaney.\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long Island resident seeks degree in health studies to help others with the condition KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 16, 2013 \u2013 They called her \u201cbrace freak.\u201d They\u2019d swipe her brace in the locker room and refuse to give it back. At lunch, no one would sit with her; they thought her scoliosis was contagious. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}