2. What type of brace did you have? I had a custom made brace. It wasn't like those that most people are fitted with. It was completly one of a kind, and it was to help support my neck.
3. What did it look like? It was really ugly. It went from the lower part of my ribs to my head. The back rapped around the back of my head to help support my neck. It was white plastic with a lot of black velcro and metal.
4. How many hours per day did you have to wear it? How long did you have to wear it for? Well, although my brace was only temporary, I hated it and, of course, never wanted it in the first place. I only had to wear it originally when I was either sitting up and/or walking around. So it really depended how motivated I was each day to wear it. Initially, my doctor hadn't set a time limit in terms of how long I was suposed to wear it. About 6 months (probably less, I can't really remember) after surgery, he said he wanted to start "weaning" me off of the brace. I laughed at him because I hjad basically stopped wearing it at that point. (I don't encourage this! lol)
5. Did you have to wear it at school? I had the surgery during the summer after 7th grade, and went back to school second semester of 8th grade. My family was kind of in the process of moving, so I was on this program where my teachers would call me and we would have class sessions over the phone a few times a week. So, when I did go back to school, I had long since stopped wearimg the brace, so, no, I didn't have to wear it at school.
6. Normally, what did you wear under your brace? I wore my regular clothes and then the brace over them. However, having the brace gave me limitations on what I could wear to the point that it would be comfortable.
7. Did you have to wear diffrent clothes because of your brace? If so, explain. Like I said before, I had limitations on what I could and couldn't wear. I couldn't wear shirts with buttons or zippers, and some fabrics would get caught on the velcro, so I had to be careful.
8. Did you have to have your brace adjusted to be more comfortable for you? I got really frustrated with my brace, especially the piece that went around the back of my head. It had velcro on it and it would get stuck in my hair all the time. Plus, it was nearly impossible to brush my hair with it because the back of the brace went too high up. I eventually went down and had it cut.
9. Describe what happend when they fitted you with the brace and the day you first got it.
Goodness, this could take a while. When someone came to fit me for my brace, it was less than a day since I had the surgery, so, as you can imagin, I was in a lot of pain. I was really angry at everyone who helped to fit me because I wasn't suposed to be sitting up yet, and they made me get up. Basically, they had a template, I supose you could say, and they fit it around me. They took a bunch of measurements and that's basically what I remember. I just had to sit there and try to stay as still as possible. I was wearing a hospital gown and it was very uncomfortable. I wasn't really concentrating on what they were doing so much, I mainly just kept telling them I wanted to see my mom and my doctor becayse they must have had the wrong person.
