So brave! Princess Eugenie just candidly opened up about her battle with scoliosis as a child for the first time on her Instagram — and she inspired royal family fans everywhere.

“Today is International Scoliosis Awareness Day and I’m very proud to share my X-Rays for the very first time. I also want to honour the incredible staff at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital who work tirelessly to save lives and make people better. They made me better and I am delighted to be their patron of the Redevelopment Appeal,” the 28-year-old wrote alongside photos of her X-Rays and her at the hospital (keep in mind Eugenie is the only royal to have her own personal Instagram account).

The X-Rays showed the rods and screws doctors inserted into Eugenie’s spine when she was just 12 years old. In a longer blog post, she recalled the scary surgery. “I can still vividly remember how nervous I felt in the days and weeks before the operation. After three days in intensive care, I spent a week on a ward and six days in a wheelchair, but I was walking again after that,” she wrote.

She then thanked the hospital for all their efforts with her 15 years ago. “Without the care I received at the RNOH I wouldn’t look the way I do now; my back would be hunched over,” she said. “And I wouldn’t be able to talk about scoliosis the way I now do, and help other children who come to me with the same problem. My back problems were a huge part of my life, as they would be for any 12-year-old. Children can look at me now and know that the operation works.”

princess eugenie

Eugenie — who is five feet and five inches tall — will walk down the aisle to her fiancé Jack Brooksbank in October. That said, we’re so glad she’s feeling better today — and we can’t wait to see photos from her special day on Instagram.