Meet Everyday Hero, Advocate & Teen Ambassador to Everyday Heroes Kids, Mia Cappuccitti-Gutierrez. Mia is a High-School Student who Underwent the Innovative ASC Surgery for Scoliosis.
We are so excited that Mia has bravely shared her Scoliosis journey and innovative ASC surgery experience with us.
My name is Mia Cappuccitti-Gutierrez, and I am 17 years old. When I was 11, I got the diagnosis that I had scoliosis. This meant that my spine was in an ‘S’ shape, rather than the straight line it was supposed to be. It began mild, but as I hit my growth spurt, it grew to a 68-degree curve; the possibility of surgery begins to come into question at a 40-degree curve. After deciding that a back brace was no longer the answer, and long conversations, my surgery was scheduled for March 10th… 2020.
I wasn’t nervous though; not in the slightest. I was wheeled into surgery while laughing and singing, painfully unaware of what I was to face on the other side of getting wheeled out of that operating room. My whole life I have been branded an ‘overcomer,’ the kid who took everything in stride and persevered her way through whatever life through at her; an optimist who, when she worked hard, saw results, but I could not have been less prepared for the journey I was in for after my nine-hour surgery.
I like to refer to waking up from my surgery as the plot to a far-fetched dystopian movie.
I walked into the hospital March 7th with no mask and under the impression that there was a rough flu season occurring in China. I woke up 9 hours later to the world having been taken over by a deadly disease that had suddenly put the entire globe in lockdown.
The surgery I received was called ASC surgery, and is an alternative to the spinal fusion surgery which involves a metal rod being embedded into my spine. Instead, I got screws put in along either side of my spine, with two tether cords connecting each screw running up my spine: naturally straightening it and allowing me to maintain the flexibility that I wouldn’t otherwise have had with fusion. Instead of going in through my back, ASC surgery requires entry through either side of the torso and involved the decompression of the lungs.
ASC surgery is considered ‘too experimental,’ in Canada, and therefore, they do not offer it, but after tireless research from my mom trying to find an alternative for fusion, one of the 5 doctors in the world who know how to perform it, was based in Barcelona, Spain, Dr. Rodriguez Olaverri. Dr. Olaverri is now apart of Everyday Heroes Kids, and it’s incredibly comforting to know that the next teenager who needs ASC will be able to find him with a click of a button, rather than having to go through the maze that my mom did to find the best help she could for me.
Coincidentally, my mom is from Barcelona, therefore I’ve spent a lot of my life there and consider it a second home. Although originally this seemed incredibly convenient, being in the epicentre for the deadly virus that had put the world in a state-of-emergency caused a lot of complications throughout my recovery.
Due to the complete lockdown occurring in Spain — where no one could leave their houses — the longest daily walk I had was from my bed to the bathroom. The lack of exercise caused fluid to build between my lung and ribcage, and when I went back to the hospital for a routine check-up, I was suddenly being rushed into emergency surgery to drain it.
And suddenly, there I was again, in the pitch black, freezing, breathless, with another thick plastic tube coming out of a new scar, carrying lung fluid and blood into a bucket next to the bed with countless IVs in my hand and arm.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convey the fear or desolation, of waking up alone, in a dark room, cold, in inexplicable pain, not knowing what’s happening and not being able to move or scream or cry because it requires air that your lungs don’t have. The most difficult part of all though, was the mental recovery. It’s what no one prepares you for. Not being able to walk, stand up on my own, or simply eat, took a toll mentally, especially considering the fact that I am a competitive figure skater and am used to being incredibly active. The worst of it, though, started when I slowly stopped taking the drugs. I was in a constant state of shaking, I had a cold sweat 24/7, and due to my lack of hunger, lost an incredible amount of weight and my hair started falling out in clumps. I was watching the news with my family one night and I started hyperventilating simply because I saw an image of an IV drip on the TV. This made me realize how far I had left to go in my recovery, and suddenly, everything felt almost useless. What didn’t help was the cancelling of everything because of the pandemic. I had nothing to get better for.
But, after returning home (watching the entirety of the Harry Potter series twice during quarantine) and being able to take longer and longer walks each day in my neighborhood, I slowly began to feel a bit better each day. With encouragement from my friends, family, Dr. Olaverri, and my teachers during online school, things began to look up. I was back on the ice figure skating and training 3 times a week by July 7, 2020 and slowly but surely, I started to feel more and more normal.
My recovery taught me a lot of things, but above all, that no matter the circumstances, it’s our mindset that determines how we come out of a situation. We cannot control our circumstances, but we can control how we react; if we stay down or fight to get back up. I controlled whether I would continue to be the resilient ‘overcomer’ I’d always been branded or not. We go through situations that challenge even the best of us, but through my surgery I grew to understand that there are so many amazing moments that we haven’t experienced yet, and so many moments that will make it all feel worth it. That if I gave into the bad, I’d never get to the good; that if I had, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.
My surgery has taught me so much and changed the way I approach everything in life, and I know that both of my scars have made me so much stronger.
Thank you Mia for sharing your journey with the Everyday Heroes Kids Community. Our entire team is so excited to welcome you as our Teen Ambassador to inspire other teens & help foster a community of relationships and good care among older pediatric populations. @MiaCappuccitti @EverydayHeroesKids www.ehkidshealth.com
