June 1985, one month before she turned 13 years old, our daughter, Jeni had surgery to correct the curvature from her spine from scoliosis. Her surgery lasted for 6 hours and she was in the hospital for 9 days after her surgery. Now, 11 years later, the Cotrel-Dubousset procedure takes only 3 1/2 hours and the average hospital stay is 7 days. Jeni is now 25, married, working and has a nine year old son.