Felician University senior soccer captain Nicole Jenal (Photo courtesy of Felician athletics)

Felician University junior Nicole Jenal spent most of her teenage years confined to a back brace for 18 hours a day. Sports served as a reprieve from the pain. They filled her afternoons with freedom from the large chunk of plastic that restricted her mobility and often left sores or welts — devices she even had to wear in her sleep.

Diagnosed with scoliosis (an abnormal, lateral curvature of the spine) at the age of 13, Jenal, a defender for the Golden Knights women’s soccer and an assistant team captain, was concerned her condition might impact her dreams of competing at the collegiate level.

Most individuals wearing a back brace to help correct the curvature of the spine are required to wear it roughly 20 hours per day, taking four hours break, but the brace must be slept in. Jenal made every minute she spent not wearing it count.

“Sometimes I forget what it was like, but I feel like it made me tougher, so if I get knocked over or something, it’s OK. I can deal with pain,” Jenal said. “I have had to deal with worse pain with my back, so I think it made me resilient in that way. I am not happy I had to wear it, but I am happy it made me who I am, because I feel like I just don’t let things get to me.”

Jenal isn’t the only member of her family to suffer from scoliosis.

Her mother, Tracy Jenal, was diagnosed with arthritis of the spine due to uncorrected scoliosis at the age of 40. Her younger sister, Megan, a college freshman, was diagnosed and put into a brace at the age of 8. Her younger brother, Chris, 14, was diagnosed and will soon be in a brace.

“Being an adult who is now in pain, I didn’t want that for my children, and I am glad they did what they did,” Tracy said. “They still have back pain. It’s not without back pain. But they are definitely much better off for having worn those braces and doing the best they could to keep it contained.”

Felician University senior Nicole Jenal with her younger sister Megan in a high school track photo. (Courtesy of Nicole Jenal)

A three-sport athlete at Bethpage (N.Y.) High School, Jenal played four years of soccer and softball and three seasons in basketball before making the decision to run indoor track alongside her sister. The siblings became a support system for one another while both wearing their braces.

“If I didn’t have anything to do with my six hours off, I would’ve kind of not looked forward to them and would’ve spent hours sitting around the house not doing stuff,” she said. “Having something to look forward to after school. Getting to take my brace off and play with my friends gave me strength and helped prevent me from getting hurt more or hurting in the brace. It was something that made my days.”

Tracy said she is amazed by the strength of her daughters. Nicole and Megan were informed by their doctor on the same day that they were done growing and no longer needed to wear a brace. To commemorate the moment, Tracy had the date tattooed down her spine in Roman numerals: Nov. 19, 2019: “XI XIX MMXIX.”

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She credits athletics in helping them get through the growing pains involved with their treatment and in finding a supportive community of peers. Their doctor also recommended physical activity to help keep their muscles strengthened.

All sports, Tracy said, were good for strengthening back muscles because when wearing the brace, an individual is completely immobile and unable to move from hips to shoulders. If something fell on the floor and needed to be picked up, it required bending at the knees. Not being active in non-brace time frames could lead to muscle atrophy.

“The fear was there would be a lot of social ridicule, but there wasn’t much of any. There was a little bit. There were kids who made fun of them or teased them, but it was so minimal because they had this army of teammates that knew them outside their brace — knew them as athletes,” Tracy said. “Then, when the brace went on, it was just no big deal to them because they have developed this kind of sisterhood with their teammates that it was not a big deal. They had a large group of very supportive people in their lives on and off the field.”

Felician University senior Nicole Jenal. (Courtesy of Felician athletics)

Nicole also serves as president of Felician’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Last spring, she walked on to the short-handed women’s lacrosse team to help out — a sport she had never played before — and earned Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Defensive Player of the Week honors.

“It is just about being an athlete. That game was just a scrappy game, and that is what I do in soccer, too. You just win your battles. I’m kind of used to a lot of one-on-one battles and coach always said to go be an athlete,” she said.

It’s the same mentality that led to her landing a Division II scholarship after battling through years of pain.

“I think the brace is a blessing in disguise because it helps you at a young age to fix what could be a much harder, lifelong problem,” Nicole said. “The light at the end of the tunnel is that you can’t wear the brace after you are done growing, so even though it might be a rough couple of years, once you are done, you are out of it and then it just more maintenance. You don’t have to worry about putting that plastic back on.”

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Joey Chandler may be reached at jchandler@njadvancemedia.com

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