Everyone knows the saying, if you step on a crack you’ll break your mother's back. Well even though I’m not a mom, I have a broken back, from my yak. Yes, somedays are better than others and most of the time the pain is barely noticeable. Having a broken sacrum can make fitting in that much harder. From my stories of the past, to my hopes for the future, I’m opening up to the world about my genetic defect.

Many people think my back is just a constant aching, most days it is, but when the breaking occurs it is a lot more than just a dull ache. The pain is sharp, deep, sudden, and unbearable. Some family members have had similar symptoms in the lower back, but never severe enough to get it checked out. I’ve been told having a broken back is worse than breaking or spraining your foot. It is true, because when my back snaps at the bone, the pain is agonizing and since it’s in the middle of my body all the muscles seize up. Unless someone broke their foot and ran a 5k on it, they probably wouldn't understand. Especially being a nine year old. Not only was it excruciatingly painful, although it wasn’t easy diagnosing it either.

At age 14 it broke again. I was born with a genetic defect in my back. When I was 9 years old in 4th grade, I jumped off a balance beam and stuck the landing, which caused the initial break. Since then, many X-rays and MRI’s have been taken that found an extra vertebrae and five extra disks in my sacrum. Everyone's sacral bone is located right above the tailbone. Within my sacrum, I have extra disks that act as a joint. Although, the disks can never be taken out. If doctors remove the disks out my back, it would have opened areas that could cause breakage even more. One way to fix my back is by fusing bones together or put in metal rods. The second solution is to habitually attend physical therapy for a couple months. I chose going to physical therapy to strengthen my core and support my sacrum. My sacral bone acts as a joint when it bends, which breaks the bone that surrounds it . When the bone snaps, it does so vertically, so technically it’s a stress fracture. Only, the doctors say that because its vertical. Realistically though, that's a nice way of putting, “You have a broken back.” Having a defected sacrum, can make life much harder and challenging like reaching to grab something, but life definitely is not impossible.

Both times I broke it, many people didn’t believe it. I was on crutches to keep the weight off my right side, where the break occurred.They would laugh at me saying ”Why do you need crutches for a broken back?”or “Shouldn’t you be in a brace?Or paralyzed?”. Daily struggles don’t just stop with disbeliefs, picking up objects is hard with crutches. With an abnormal sacrum, it is next to impossible to bend over to pick up my pencil or any other objects I happen to drop. Using crutches can make holding objects harder. When I was stuck at home, all I wanted to do is be clean, make my bed, and put away my clothes. My mom yelled at me every time I did, which I find pretty funny. Even doing my chores is hard, which is actually how I broke it the second time.

The second time I broke my back, people didn’t believe me at all, and to be honest I didn’t either.The date was October 22. It was a normal day, until my back snapped. I went outside to feed my yak calf. I take care of baby yaks for about 6 months and then my neighbors take over them from there. I eventually went outside to bottle feed the 4 month old, baby Charlotte. I wanted to get her some fresh water for her calf hutch, and after that it went down hill. I bent in a weird position and it snapped. I was to the point that if anything touched me, I would drop to the ground and probably be found hours later. I very slowly moved my face towards the horizon, instead of the dirt, and fought through enough pain to put away the bottle and slowly walked inside. Once I was inside I told my mom, and I stayed home and finished my homework instead of going to swim practice. The next day I woke up feeling sore, and headed to school. At about 1 pm I went to pick up my books at the end of a class and it snapped again. I slowly made it to math, and finished a quiz while trying to not fall off the desk from pain. After I finished my quiz I headed to the nurse's office. Then it snapped 5 times on the way there. I sat in a chair and waited until the nurse got there. I tried looking for her but the pain was too intense to move. Once again I was bracing myself to the chair, to try to not fall off, and my muscles were seizing up. After about 15 minutes she finally got there, and as I was fighting off the tears, I asked her if I could go home. Once my mom got to the nurse's office, I started to move, only about an inch and it cracked again. By that point it was every time a muscle moved. I somehow ended up in my moms arms as she carried me out to the car, and took off to the ER. When we got there, the doctors came and got me in a wheelchair and then to a room. They pumped me full of heavy duty medicine and after that I was a hoot. Another X-ray was done, only to find out what we knew from my fourth grade experience. The doctor gave me crutches and told me that I need to see specialists on genetic deformities.Specialists in the field of deformities, said that once I finish growing, my core will stabilize my back. I had to take stuff slow, and not do anything dumb. I knew that my life was going to change, quite a bit actually,one of them being activities.

After I broke my back the first time I quit: soccer, gymnastics, and dance, which was devastating. The doctors say play “quiet games”, or “low impact sports” meaning no getting back to my regular schedule. Instead, I  picked up swimming and speech. My recent injury caused me to skip the swimming season. Until I’m done with physical therapy, I can’t do sports or gym.

Once the medication from the ER was out of my blood stream I was able to go back to school. Telling the story, more disbeliefs started rolling in even faster. That moment was one of the most difficult times in my life. Then I realized I don’t care about people's thoughts. I only was drawn closer to my religion, family, and friends. I look at others who have it worse though, like cancer, I’m so grateful that my genetic defect is something that I just have to be careful about and isn’t life threatening. Even though most people would look at a genetic defect as something bad, I want to break that stereotype. I realized at that moment that the difficult time in my life was no longer true. So what if people don’t believe that I have a deformed sacrum, I have a wonderful life already, sure with a couple bumps in the road. My family and friends don’t care that I’m different, or feel sorry for me, they help me get back on my feet. They love my stubbornness, my personality, and especially my imperfections. So what if someone steps on a crack, I’m not scared. I’m going to embrace it, one step a time.