WE CAN REBUILD HIM. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY.

Leg lengthening, or distraction osteogenesis, as I like to call him, is not really leg lengthening so much as it is leg growing. Here’s how it works:

The bone (in my case, my right tibia) is surgically split into two segments, and then the two ends of the bone are gradually moved apart slowly enough so that new bone can form in the gap. At the same time, all the soft tissues and stuff surrounding the bone expands too. The result is a longer leg (or arm, or toe, or jaw bone, or middle finger).

This is all done using an external fixator to create tension stress. This Russian dude name Gavril Ilizarov came up with this technique, so they named the fixator after him.

But I’m not getting the Ilizarov fixator, pictured below:



I’m getting a monolateral fixator:



Doesn’t that look much less scary than the Ilizarov?

There was also an option of having a metal rod put in my leg with an automatic timer of some sort that lengthens the leg at regular intervals, but that’s complication prone, and my doctor said that for my amount of lengthening, would be too unnecessarily risky. He’s the doctor, so I listened to him.

Apparently I’ll be turning little knobs on the fixator a few times a day, which is what will pull the bone apart. The fixator will be attached to my leg via pins drilled into my bone through my skin.

One of the biggest elements of the process will be pin site care. The most common complication of limb lengthening is pin site infections. I’ll have to clean the pin sites very carefully everyday in order not to get infections. If I do get a pin site infection, I have to take antibiotics. If the infection gets bad, and travels to the bone, I have to get on serious IV antibiotics. So let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

Through all kinds of tests and trials, they’ve found that bone should grow no more than 1 millimeter per day. An inch is 2.54 centimeters. There are 10 millimeters in one centimeter. So I’ll be lengthening for about one month.

When the aimed length has been reached (in my case, one angry inch), a consolidation phase follows. Meaning I’ll still be wearing the external fixator, but I won’t be lengthening anymore. It’ll just be there to support my bone as it heals.

I’ll be doing lots of physical therapy to make sure I keep my knee and ankle mobility. I might get some sort of motion machine that does the work for me. I’m also apparently going to get something to wear at night that stimulates healing via electric pulses. Essentially, I’m going to half-machine.

The consolidation phase is supposed to last about two months. So after about three months in total, I’ll get to take the fixator off. That’s a quick, out-patient procedure, but I’ll have to go back on crutches for a few weeks afterward, just to be safe, and then take it easy for a while after that, in order not to re-fracture my bone.

Is all this going to hurt? Yeah, probably a lot. I’ll have pain killers. I’m not too worried about it, though. I have a pretty high pain tolerance. Though if I’m whining on here in a month about how much it hurts, you can all remind me of how I boasted so brashly about being so tough.

Days until surgery: 21