Синдром грудного выхода: история подростка, чья жизнь изменилась из-за сдавления нервов

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) is a disorder which arises as a byproduct of nerve and blood vessel compression in the lower neck and upper chest. For most, the thoracic outlet, spanning all the way from the neck to the chest, is wide enough to allow passage for nerve signals and blood to flow unabated. However, stress and trauma, mingled with unfortunate congenital anomalies, can make this passage too narrow, thus pressing on the nerves or blood vessels, creating the world in which I have lived for the previous two years. It first introduced itself in high school, during an early morning exam in the middle of winter. Sat inside a small classroom, surrounded by old brick walls and students avidly scratching pens against paper, my hand, suddenly incapable of movement, curled, paralysed, around my pen. My mind consistently urged my body to move the hand in the formation of familiar letters as the time on the clock passed faster than anticipation, my body horrifyingly refusing compliance. Later, as it turned purple in the cold air, I flaunted my still-curled, numbed hand to my friends between classwork, laughing as I held it up to those who would see, almost akin to a circus trick: Look before you, the grotesque and slowly swelling hand, not ceasing in its pain. Hours later, my mother rushed me to the hospital. Eyes swelling and blurring the passage of cars, the panic of an unknown pain did not fail me. From the moment I sat outside the doctor’s office, my adolescence shifted. I awaited the acceptance that my life would never again be the one I once knew. The doctor observed my marvel of a hand beneath the white light of his office, disregarding it as nothing new to be concerned about. I returned home that night and prayed until the marks of the carpet engraved themselves in the skin of my knees. My fingers, incapable of overlapping one another in a clasp, curled up in balls as I prayed for salvation for a sin I could not identify. It appeared my prayers were not enough to save me. For a long time, I silenced myself, preferring the isolation of my bedroom amid a persistent, agonising pain trickling down my arms and into the tips of my fingers, slowly washing hope out to the corner of my mind. Much of this led to a gradual estrangement from those around me. I was meant to be a writer. I could not write and possessed no knowledge about how to use my voice; I was paralysed. Amid every moment of depression, I became inarticulately angry about how nobody was forced to experience the same fate as me. What infuriated me most was how I did not even know what my fate was. I existed merely within the incremental passage of my adolescence, in hospital gowns, needles pricked deep into skin and persistently gazing at the inside of my body while diagnoses evaded me. Shuttled from hospital to hospital, to little avail or clarification, my mother pleaded with doctors, begging for some recognition about what was wrong with her child. Fatefully, after a final teared call to a chiropractor, everything which constituted me began to align. We could not identify the root cause, perhaps a cruel byproduct of my overt ambition and overzealousness toward writing. However, we finally knew the reason for this pain: the nerves crumpled beneath the tightness of muscles, or perhaps by a misplaced rib, possibly in the formation of a circle or some other contorted shape. After witnessing these complications within me, it became apparent that the pain was not wholly circular — it was not an ouroboros of suffering; the exit was right there. With this period came the sudden approach of high school graduation, and with it, the all-encompassing period of study and piles of textbooks. The public education sector was not one of support. Teachers belittled me for illegible handwriting borne of pain, holding my essays up to the class as a representation of how to fail the Higher School Certificate exams. Confronted with my inability to write, the school administration refused compassion, perhaps presuming an attempt to seek unneeded equity in my testing, despite records of perfect grades. After months of bureaucratic hurdles, acquiring doctor’s notes and hospital records, even the NSW Education Standards Authority seemed unable to accommodate my needs. Appeals were written and eventually, I was granted a scribe — a tool of very little use to a student with such a strong degree of struggle verbalising thoughts and coherent ideas. Ultimately, with blue hands and swollen fingers curled into one another, I held my graduation certificate marking amongst the highest in my cohort. However, this win was in spite of everyone the world instructed me to believe was trustworthy. No government system saved me, nor any teacher or peer. Where the healthcare and education systems disregarded equity and denied me basic respect, the only outcome was the creation of an immensely distrustful individual. I could have been capable of holding a pen once more if I was diagnosed that winter. Instead, I was not granted any understanding about my body until the late summer. I could have graduated high school with more memories outside of my room, independent of reciting textbooks until I lost my voice. There could have been so much more for me. Two years later, the pain has not ceased. I have since forgotten how a pen feels in my grasp, how the letters curl when I write. I have found that approaching these issues often feels demeaning and futile. I have become so isolated by the thought of never meeting another person who has had the same experience as me, but can only consider that they have been bludgeoned into silence. Two years later, I have only now begun to voice my pain. I have only now learned how to be wholly myself despite my contorted architecture.