16-Year-Old Meaghan Duggan Shares Her Healing Journey

William Golding once said in his famous book Lord of the Flies, “The thing is, fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream.” Although a profound statement, I beg to differ because, for 16 months of my life, I was stuck in a painful nightmare. This is the story of my journey of my personal crucifixion and being reborn in Jesus Christ. 

2018 was a year of change. My dad got a new job, we moved from homeschooling to a full-time private school in the inner city, and I was starting 8th grade. With all this new change, my little sister, Mary, and I needed physicals for the volleyball team we were planning on joining. 

Arriving at our family doctors, we went through the normal motions of getting our height and weight checked. Mary passed her physical, but when our doctor instructed me to bend and touch my toes, my mom audibly gasped. I wasn’t sure why she made such a sound and was confused. The doctor told me to stand up and sit on the exam table, which I did. I felt so confused. 

Even though I was the topic of conversation, it was like I wasn’t even in the room. The doctor mostly talked about me as if I wasn’t there, as if I wasn’t even a human being. Every once in a while, she threw in a small joke and looked over at me as if she expected me to chuckle. I didn’t. I just wanted to know what was wrong with me. As a 14-year-old girl, I was convinced everyone just saw something really bad and that something was permanently wrong with me.

A few weeks later, instead of climbing out of our fire-red 15 passenger van to head into normal classes, my mom instructed me to stay put. After she dropped everyone off at school, we headed to the Orthopedics clinic, where we would see a specialist. This was the place where I would meet with the bone doctor for a proper diagnosis.

We waited for a long time until a sweet pregnant nurse finally ushered my mom, my two youngest siblings, and I into an examination room. We settled ourselves when this nurse began to ask me question after question. Twenty minutes later, three grown men walked in. One of them was my doctor, who I would come to know and love, along with two interns he was training. The three of them poked and prodded me for an hour. Hands roamed my back as they examined my bones.

My mother sat rigid in her seat, gripping her purse with white knuckles. My doctor looked at me with a kind smile and sat down. Calmly he explained to my mother that I had a condition called Major Advanced Double Curve Idiopathic Scoliosis. 

He told me and my mother that this was a common condition in tall, thin, and white females about my age and that my spine was in an S shape. They measured my “curves” in degrees and my curvature was severe. The kind doctor explained to my mother that we had three options: the first was to wait a few months to see if my curvature worsened. The second was to schedule a surgery, which wasn’t ideal because metal rods would be placed in my back affecting my ability to give birth and perform certain other physical activities. And lastly, the doctor recommended a referral to a prosthetics specialist for a back brace, to prevent my curves from getting worse.

My parents decided to wait three months and when we returned to the office for a follow-up, my doctor came in and sat down. He looked directly at my mom and asked her if there was a hospital near our house. My mom frowned and told him there was.

Placing a hand on my knee, the doctor looked at me with a sad expression and explained my curve had worsened significantly (it was almost a 50-degree curvature by then) and I either needed to have surgery or get a back brace to correct my scoliosis. 

My breath caught in my lungs as my mom and doctor conversed about my back. I hid my tears and fears behind a small smile. When they both turned to ask me what I wanted to do, I nodded and confirmed I wanted to be braced.

Except I didn’t want to be braced. I wanted to forget this entire nightmare.

When we got back in the van, I reassured my mom that everything would be okay and that I would commit to wearing my brace. My words seemed to ease her nerves a little, but not much. On the way to school, I sat in the back of the car and choked back tears for the third time that day. My mom's voice shook as she informed my Grandma of the current situation, every once in a while glancing back at me with a pitying expression.

Fast forward a month. We arrived at a prosthetics office, a small building with a few chairs, and two nice ladies at the front desk. My leg shook with nerves.

A bubbly, talkative lady entered the room with a huge smile. She shook my hand and led us to an even smaller room. We talked for about an hour. All the while I held back tears that threatened to fall at any moment. Then, she jumped into fitting me for my brace. She instructed me to undress completely except for my underwear and she started the process of measuring me.

This was the beginning of what I call my own personal crucifixion. In this small room, my mom and two youngest siblings sat watching me, stripped naked, standing in a T-form and a specialist walked around me in circles trying to get a 3-D picture of me. I closed my eyes and tried to picture anything else than what was happening to me.

I felt so violated.

Goosebumps formed on my arms and legs as I shook. It was wintertime and cold and I was standing in a room full of people practically naked. After about 2 hours--an eternity--the specialist allowed me to get dressed back into my clothes and proceed back to school.

On this car ride back, I wrapped my arms around my stomach as I tried to get the picture out of my head of what I just experienced.

A month later we returned to the same small office for my brace fitting, the device I would wear around my body for the next 16 months. I tried to hide the fear that seemed to be seeping through my pores. 

Luckily, this time, my two little siblings didn’t tag along to observe. My mom allowed me to bring my friend to help give me moral support, which definitely eased my nerves. Once again, I was instructed to undress except for my underwear and a tank top. 

This newer type of brace was supposed to correct my curves, but it looked nothing short of outdated. The device was completely plastic covered in patriotic stars, per my request, and had two large holes in it. Two large velcro straps ran across the front like a snake. It was much larger and much bulkier than I expected and the sight of it scared me beyond anything I could imagine. 

Within seconds, I found myself strapped in this medieval torture device. As the snakes, I mean straps, were closed in around me, I felt myself unable to breathe. I audibly cried out in pain as every inch of my waist and torso was crushed. I begged the doctor to let me out. Tears rushed to my eyes and my throat stung. I looked helplessly at my mother and silently begged her to get me out.

Suddenly blood rushed to my ears and I could hear my doctor telling me to sit up. Unable to do so, I reached for her hand and she pulled me up. There was no way I could wear this brace for even a week, yet the specialist and doctor expected me to do this for months on end, 23 hours of the day. 

The next three hours of my brace fitting dragged on. I was strapped in and out of my brace, straightened and unstraightened. By the end of the day, my bones hurt. This brace was designed to push certain muscles in my back into the spine in order to straighten the curves in my back and it hurt.

I was supposed to “ease into my brace,” wearing it for a few hours each day and eventually working up to 23 hours total. That first week of bracing was the worst pain of my life. Muscles I didn’t even know I had burned like hot irons. 

People at school soon found out about my brace and they made fun of me. People knocked on my brace and made jokes. Laughing off their words, I shoved down the true pain I felt, but I cried to my mother in the late hours of the night. 

After the first week of full-time brace wearing, I felt absolutely helpless. All week, my mom had been ranting about this man named Mark Virkler. She claimed his four-step prayer method changed her life almost instantly! Of course, being the middle school skeptic as I was, I told my mom, “There's no way that you can just TALK to God, Mom. He only talks to people who really need help.” 

I acted like I knew what I was talking about, which I clearly didn’t. 

My mom kept raving about these “Four Keys” and I rolled my eyes and feigned interest. She made it sound like it was some kind of “get rich quick” scheme, but she wasn’t fooling me.

After that first full week of wearing my brace, though, I went into my mom’s room and cried to her about my physical pain. My back ached, my ribs were sore, my skin raw, and I had to sleep with this new best friend, my brace, and all the pain it brought. 

My mom listened while I cried.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my sob hiccups. As I did, my mother pulled out a brand new journal she had purchased for me because she was so adamant her kids learn this new way of prayer she loved so much. Grabbing a pen, she wrote down the four steps to hearing God’s voice and handed me the journal.

“Go find a quiet room and follow these steps,” she said. Exhausted mentally and physically, I took the journal from her and left the room. Trekking down to the basement, I sat in a comfy chair and closed my eyes. I cleared my mind and whispered, “Come Holy Spirit”. 

It was as if I had come up for air after being underwater. 

I had a sudden vision of Jesus, covered in white and shining, descending down the stairs. He walked towards me and I felt pulled to Him like a magnet. The only thing I wanted to do was hug Him, so I got up and I did just that. When He wrapped His arms around me, He whispered in my ear, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” When I heard that line from scripture, I knew God was going to straighten my back. I also knew that He was going to do it on His time, not mine. I may not have had a physical miracle in that moment, but I was comforted in the knowledge that I was not alone. 

Immediately, any feeling of pain I had just moments before left. In my vision, my brace vanished and my back straightened! All of the resistance and pain I felt vanished. I felt complete peace, the pain was so small in comparison to Jesus’ hug. I felt as if I could finally understand just even a small part of God’s plan for me and my scoliosis. Through His words during my two-way journaling, He communicated to me how He was going to use scoliosis to help others. 

Fast forward 16 long, hard months, I sat in the doctor's office waiting for my favorite doctor to come in. When he arrived, he smiled and shook my hand. I was nervous because, for the last few months, the doctor saw improvement in my spine’s curvature. I was hoping he might tell me I could stop bracing. While I waited, I repeated the Proverbs passage silently to myself.

When he sat down on his rolling stool, without sugar-coating it, the doctor explained my brace had corrected my curves by almost 20 degrees. I was out of the surgery range and would only have 3 months left of bracing. 

“Your perseverance and commitment to wearing your brace has taken you from a 90% chance of surgery to the probability you will be just fine for the rest of your life. Since we corrected your curve so well, you won't have any problems with pregnancy, future back pain, and the like. You, Meaghan, are a 'model patient,'” he said.

I had faithfully worn my brace for 23 hours a day, 7 days a week for a year and a half. 

My eyes filled with happy tears. I looked at my mom with a huge smile.

God did it, He had made straight my paths. It may not have been the exact way I wanted it, but He did it perfectly.

To this day, I use the four keys to hearing God’s voice. The four keys got me through 16 months of pain. Consistently, Jesus had to remind me that He was bigger than my pain. Jesus talked to me when I felt so alone and I thank Him every day for the joy and miracles He brought and still brings to my life. I know that I cannot go through any part of my life without Him. He is truly my best friend and the four keys have helped me see Him in a totally new light.

As of August 25th, 2020, I am completely brace-free. I know that scoliosis was a journey I could not have done alone. God sent me friends and family who helped guide me throughout my journey.  He sent me my mom, who taught me the four keys and was my rock throughout my whole journey. (She is still my rock of support.)

I have grown exponentially in my love for God and prayer, and I am still growing. I pray for anyone struggling with pain and I offer my own personal pain for those who haven’t seen the glory of God. Struggle is real. Pain is real. Your emotions are real. And God is real. He is here to take your cross and carry your burden. Trust and believe that Jesus is here and ask Him to come close to your heart and heal those broken parts.

Jesus loves you and chooses you. Remember to open the door of your heart because He is knocking. 

-Meaghan (16)