SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Over Christmas six-year-old Noah Rice wished he and his mom could shrink small enough to escape inside a gingerbread house where there would be no more hurt.
Terry Lynn Rice suffers from scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, kyphosis, over-curvature of the upper back, and other ailments. The pain from her conditions makes it difficult to stand still so instead she squats down. - Miranda Scotland/NNSL photo
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"'I don’t want you to be sick and I don’t want you to be in pain. Leave the pain outside the door,'" Terri Lynn Rice recalls her son saying.
The elder Rice was diagnosed with a serious case of scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, at the age of five. To correct the curve medical professionals placed a rod in her back but they had to take it out when her spine started twisting around it. The doctors had never seen anything like it, according to Rice.
In another attempt to improve her condition, Rice was given a back brace to wear from age 11 to 15.
"The back brace had a big metal collar that would go underneath my chin and a bar here in front and two in the back and then the back brace around. I had to wear that faithfully night and day," Rice said, adding it didn't help much but attracted some attention. "When I first had the back brace on I used to get teased quite a bit. Once they got used to it I was just me."
In addition to scoliosis, Rice deals with a number of other ailments, including kyphosis, an over-curvature of the upper back; fibromyalgia, a condition that causes chronic widespread pain; osteoarthritis in the spine; a pinched sciatic nerve; bone spurs; and three or four herniated discs.
The pain, she said, is debilitating and greatly limits what she can do. After sitting all day at work she has to go home and lie down to get rid of the pain. Shopping is also a chore, she added, because she can't stand still for long.
"If it gets busy at the Wal-Mart or wherever, if I can't hold on any longer I just have to leave the cartload and go," she said. "Or if my husband is with me then I say, 'OK, you go do it and I'm going to sit down.'"
Rice takes a pill for nerve pain and for inflammation as also wears a 72-hour pain patch. The medication helps, she said, but it isn't a cure all.
Also, her situation is made more difficult by a lack of understanding from the people around her. Even now at 37 years old people tease her, she said.
Rice remembers a day when she had been waiting at a job site for someone to unlock the office door. Since standing still was too painful she decided to squat down and when the worker finally showed up to let her in he started mimicking her and laughing.
"I find that the adults are the ones that are worse than the kids," she said. "The kids walk on by and don't even give me a second look. But the adults come around … and look at me as if I'm some alien or something."
By sharing her story Rice said she hopes to inspire Yellowknifers to be not only more understanding of her but of everyone else around them. If a child is yelling in the supermarket don't immediately label him a brat or a bad kid because who knows what his story is, she said.
"People shouldn’t be so quick to judge," Rice said. "Be kind, be generous."
