Rayna Hatfield, a sophomore, has recently recovered from spinal surgery and is now back on the court playing basketball. She had scoliosis, the sideways curvature of the spine, for five years. It was passed down to her from her mom. She was given the choice to get spinal fusion and she decided to do the surgery and had the procedure done in July. If she hadn’t gotten the surgery, her spine would continue to curve further and would start to push her other bones around. For the surgery, they took two titanium rods and 21 screws and screwed the rods into each side of her vertebrae. The surgery took a total of nine hours. 

She was in the hospital for three days, two of which she wasn’t able to walk at all. After she was sent home she had to re-learn how to do pretty much everything. “It hurt just to sit, so I stayed laying in bed for a while,” she said. After a few weeks, it got better, but she had to wait 5 months before she would be cleared to play basketball again. “It's been hard trying to get back on the court because everything felt so weird and different,” she said. 

Before the surgery, she could walk and run normally, but her shoulders and ribs were uneven. After the surgery, she found it hard to adjust to the feeling of the rods in her back, but she is now used to it and can walk and run as normal. “I was doing physical therapy in the hospital, but I do not have to anymore because playing sports has helped me,” said Hatfield.

She is now back on the court, better than ever.