DONTAE Donalds sat hunched over, a look of defeat on his face.

For the past 19 years, life for the 25-year-old has been synonymous with pain.

“I don’t know a pain-free day because I’m constantly in pain. You have days where the pain is so severe I cannot move any at all; I can’t get up, I only can lie down. And when I attempt to get up there’s a heavy rush of pain, and that just hits me and I have to just try to lay down,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Donalds suffers from multiple severe scoliosis, an advanced form of the condition that leaves victims with multiple spinal curves exceeding 45-50 degrees. It can lead to significant pain, physical deformity, and potential organ damage.

He was diagnosed when he was six years old, after a van ran over his leg and he was taken to Bustamante Hospital for Children.

The doctors, he said, wanted to operate, but they opted to do it “when I finished my growth spurt”.

“The way they explained it, they said that… my lungs — my organs, basically — they were growing… and at the rate that the ribcage was growing and curving, it might just puncture my lungs.”

“When I stopped growing at 15 they decided to just do the surgery,” he said.

However, according to his grandmother, Naomi Johnson, after the surgery Donalds struggled to walk for a period of time, but with further treatment he eventually got back on his feet.

That resulted in him seeking and gaining employment. However, in 2020 he had a mishap on the job.

According to Johnson, her grandson told her that he felt pain in his back after bending to lift a box with flyers and heard “a loud pop”.

“When his mother called me and told me about it I said [to him], ‘You have to stop working.’ He wasn’t working there more than maybe about six months so when I questioned him, I asked what kind of work was he doing; was he lifting stuff up?” Johnson related.

“He said, ‘No, Grandma, only like, you know, the little box with the label I lift up and heard the pop [in my back]’,” Johnson shared.

She said the pain got more severe and she took him to do an X-ray which revealed that the casings placed around his vertebrae from his first operation were rendered obsolete.

“Piece of it break off and sometimes it stick him in his spine. The doctor said it’s moving around because it’s no longer attached, so it can stick him in his spine,” she told the Observer.

The doctor, she said, immediately referred him to do surgery — at no cost. However, she needs to acquire the equipment — 20 pedicle screws, two 5.5mm cobalt chrome rods, and one nerve monitoring cervical/lumbar fusion. The cost: $1,904,671.

Johnson, who is 71 years old and no longer works, struggled to conceptualise where funding would come from. She explained that due to Donalds’ visually impaired mother living outside the island, she is all he has.

She took her plight to the Ministry of Health and Wellness, which granted her $800,000 that has already been paid to Kingston Public Hospital, where the surgery is to be performed.

The grant leaves her with an outstanding balance of $1,104,671.

With payment due on September 9, 2025 and the surgery scheduled for October, Johnson is appealing to the public for support.

She is, though, worried about the date.

“When I was talking to the nurse, I said, ‘Why the doctor give him such a long appointment?’ She said because he’s giving us enough time to see if we can get the things,” Johnson shared.

The date of the surgery also fits into the schedule of a medical mission from overseas.

“Some doctors coming down from abroad who will be working with the doctors out here in October so, you know, we’d like to get him out there. I’ll be so grateful to get the help,” Johnson said.

Anyone wishing to help can contact Naomi Johnson and Dontae Donalds at: (876) 997-0421.

Dontae Donalds relates the daily pain he endures due to multiple severe scoliosis.