Author's Note: Story Origin

                                    

                                          
My darling readers, I want to take a minute to explain my reasoning behind writing this book in full. Things are going to get kind of deep, fair warning. But there is a reason why my character is going through a lot of struggles. They aren't just ideas I came up with. They are things I myself, or the people I know went through. All of the things in here mentioned are connected in some way, the book itself has an outline I've worked really hard on and am still going over every once in a while, to make sure I'm connecting everything correctly, so the point I'm trying to make in this book comes across.
                          
There is a huge audience of people out there who feel very...alone. The anxieties of having to grow up and be an adult, the worries of not knowing what to choose as a major in college, the fear of not knowing what to expect, all of those things are very real, and stuff I and my friends went through.
                          
I went through a hard time in middle school and high school, and I want to kind of go way back to my 6th grade year. 
                          
It was my 12th birthday, and I had gone to the doctor for my yearly check up, when they discovered that my spine did not seem straight--in fact it seemed to curve off to one side, and my shoulders didn't seem to be in alignment. Worried, they sent me to have x-rays done and sure enough, my spine was curved at the bottom, and slightly curved at the top forming a very weird S shape.
                          
I was diagnosed with scoliosis. 
                          
It's not a very well understood disability, in fact there's no cure. Scientists are still doing studies to understand WHY it occurs, and if there is any way to fix it. Which, typically, there isn't.
                          
There was 2 reasons I ended up with it, 1 being that I grew really fast when I was a kid, so fast that my poor spine could not keep up, hence why it ended up curving. It also could be a genetic thing as my dad has a slight case of scoliosis, and his grandmother also had it. But there'snot guarantee that it was passed on genetically. 
                          
Now, it got worse over the years. Every time I grew, my spine would curve more, but it finally stopped my 7th grade year when I reached 5'6" in height. With a curvature of 36 degrees. Had I still been growing I would have been in a brace, but fortunately, I had stopped growing so there was no need for one.
                          
Scoliosis brought a lot of struggles in my life, including chronic back pain. I have physical therapy exercises to do to help manage the pain, but sometimes it get's so unbearable that nothing helps--the best thing I can do is lay down and wait for the pain to pass. Some days are worse than others. Over the years I learned to ignore it, but it became something to live with, to work around, and to understand the limits of what I am able to do. 
                          
It later affected more than my back, it affected my posture as well which led to nerve damage in my arms, and caused migraines. My hips don't align, and neither do my shoulders, so I'll end up with pain there. I am able to get pregnant and carry a baby perfectly fine, but it's likely to be extremely painful, and it's hard to say what will happen with my back and hips during the pregnancy, so I don't intend to put myself in a situation where it's possible. 
                          
I learned to work with the pain and it became a normal thing for me. When I was 16 though, another problem arose. I ended up getting a cyst on my ovary, which had to be removed surgically. Thankfully it was a laparoscopic surgery--I only had 3 small incisions instead of one big one across my abdomen.
                          
To explain, all people with ovaries get cysts during ovulation, it's not uncommon. Sometimes they stick around too long, but later rupture, and it's painful, but it goes away on its own. I got a cyst that ruptured, but didn't go away, instead it closed over, and filled with blood, which eventually cut off blood flow into my ovary. My ovary was basically being strangled by itself. So I had to go into surgery to have the cyst removed, but I got to keep my ovary.