MOVE IT ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE

I'm closing up shop. I might post in a few weeks to report on how my leg is feeling, but if this does turn out to be the last time I post, assume that all went well from here on out. Or that I'm dead. It'll be one of those two things.

If you were reading this blog because you were a friend and/or relative of mine blessed with two equal length legs, then thanks for your readership! I hope you found my months of agony entertaining.

If you came to this blog looking for information about leg lengthening, then I hope it's been helpful to you. Of course my experience was just that: my experience. Yours could be very different. That being said, on my final post, here's my list of 10 things I think would benefit anyone about to undergo leg lengthening:

1. Pick a good time to start the process. Really plan for the time off of work/school, and make sure that it's also a good time for anyone you might be needing to help you. Which leads me to...

2. You're going to need a caregiver. Someone falling into the "parent" or "person I'm married to" category would be preferable. Someone you are just dating might be a little iffy. Definitely don't think you can depend on a roommate to help you through it. Unless you feel comfortable asking your roommate to help you shower. Maybe you do.

3. Try to get as much help and support from your doctor as you can. I say "try" because it's not always possible with some doctors. Don't be afraid to call your doctor's answering service in the middle of the night.

4. Take all the pain medication that you need, but try not to take more than that. If you get addicted, you get addicted. Wean yourself off. Unless you have a problem with substance abuse, you will be able to regulate how much you need.

5. Pin site care. Your doctor will tell you one thing, you'll read many other things on the internet, but I found that the less I messed with them, the better. Just wash them in the shower with plain water, use sterile q-tips to dry them, and cover them with sterile gauze. And get yourself a shower seat. Trying to hose them down while standing up is not smart.

6. During the lengthening period, do your stretches. Everyday, all day. I know it hurts. But if you miss even one day you will feel it and it will only make things harder.

7. When you're on crutches, pad the tops of them with towels. Your armpits will still get sore, but not as bad. Being on crutches just sucks. Get off them as soon as you can.

8. You really can walk with the fixator without doing any damage to yourself. Walk as much as possible. Especially during the consolidation phase. Your bone will ache and you'll know it's growing.

9. Once the lengthening period is over, you won't be in pain at all. So go out and live your life. Just don't do anything stupid.

10. You're going to have bad days, and really bad days, and days where you want to shoot yourself in the head. You're also going to have good days. Just try to roll with it. It'll all be worth it in the end.

WOUNDS

Bottom two pin site holes:



Top two pin site holes:



Knee screw removal site (with stitches):



Ankle screw removal site (with stitches):

FACTS, NOTHING BUT THE

First surgery date: May 30th, 2007
Time spent in the hospital: 3 days, 2 nights
Begin date of lengthening: June 4, 2007
Duration of lengthening period: 24 days
Amount lengthened: one angry inch (2.54 centimeters)
Amount of work missed: 5 weeks
Duration of consolidation period before weight transfer: 76 days
Length of Vicodin withdrawal: 7 weeks
Second surgery date: October 24, 2007
Total duration of fixation: 148 days

I.V. BRUISE

The picture doesn't really do it justice. It's much more green and red than the picture shows.



Today I'm feeling a lot more like myself, probably because I'm taking very little Vicodin. My fever spiked this afternoon, and after last June's fever incident//911 call/ER visit/verbal ass-whooping from my doctor, I knew that post-surgery fevers were normal so I just took some Tylenol and waited it out. I haven't tried much weight bearing since the surgery, but I'm going back to work on Monday so I'll inevitably try some then.

And I'm starting to count down until I get this tight ass bandage removed from my leg. 68 hours!

SURGERY IS COLD

Yesterday was my surgery to remove the four pins and two screws in my leg. Everything went fine, and I was home by 1pm. The worst part was how cold I was in the operating room and when I woke up. I couldn't stop shaking for an hour after the surgery. While I was waiting in the pre-op room before my surgery, I heard a little boy tell a little girl about what surgery is like. "Surgery is cold!" he said. Indeed, little boy, it is.

Here's me waiting to get all operated on:



Here's my leg ready to get de-pinned:



I'm not sure what I thought my leg would look like post-surgery, I suppose just a few bandages here and there, but I woke up and it was all wrapped up almost like a cast, and I was surprised that they didn't take it off before they sent me home. A call to my doctor confirmed that he won't be taking it off until my appointment with him next Tuesday. Which I suppose is fine. It's really tight and pretty uncomfortable, but I don't really want to see the carnage under there.

Here's a not very exciting picture of my mummy leg:



They gave me a prescription for Vicodin (hello old friend!) and at first I was reluctant to take it, but my leg hurts a significant amount. Not like the lengthening, just very sore and tender. I've been taking 1/2 a Vicodin every 4 or 5 hours, and that seems to be keeping the pain at bay. Hopefully by the end of the weekend the soreness will be much better.

And since there aren't any gory pictures of my wounds to show you, here's my bloody IV bandage:

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!

Only two days until surgery! Woohoo!

SERENDIPITOUS SYNERGY (OR SYNERGISTIC SERENDIPITY, WHICHEVER YOU PREFER)

The universe conspired today to bring together me and the man whose movie informed the name of this blog, John Cameron Mitchell . He was in the elevator at my doctor's office! Tres meta.

I had my pre-surgery tests today. Nothing fancy... blood drawn, peed in the cup, yada yada yada. I thought maybe after going through almost five months of pin site cleaning, getting blood drawn wouldn't still bother me. But nope, I'm still a big wuss!

Only nine days left!

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

The light at the end of the tunnel is shining brightly these days, as I'm only ten (10!) days away from pin removal surgery. And I'm starting now to reflect on how I spent the last four and half months, and how different it was than I thought it would be.

When I first decided to have leg lengthening surgery, the idea of months of inactivity didn't really phase me. Actually, it was somewhat the opposite. Being inordinately lazy by nature, I saw it as a free pass to spend the summer on my couch, watching TV and movies and reading books and magazines and just relaxing.

But as soon as the lengthening started, I realized that I wouldn't be doing any of those fun things. The pain led to the drugs, which led to a complete inability to focus on anything, even a TV show. Reading was out of the question. The TV was generally on, and it did help distract from the pain somewhat, but I couldn't really tell you what I watched during that time. I remember watching a lot of The Cosby Show, but that's because at least two cable channels play it pretty much all night long, and since I didn't really sleep for the four weeks of lengthening, it seemed to be on all the time.

The only other thing I could manage to do during the lengthening period was play a hand-held version of Tetris that my sister-in-law got me. I'm telling you, if you ever have to experience an extended period of pain, get yourself a Tetris game. There's something about the simplicity of the game that requires very little concentration but also at the same time keeps your mind engaged enough to distract from the pain you're experiencing.

During the lengthening period was when I got the most visitors, but since I was so drugged up, I couldn't really enjoy them or even interact with them very much. Someone told me once to spread out my visitors, and in retrospect that certainly seems like good advice, also because visitors really do tire you out, as silly as that sounds.

Toward the end of the lengthening period, my head started to clear a bit and I could focus enough to watch TV. This was probably because I was now addicted to Vicodin, so it wasn't making me as out of it as it used to. I was able to get in a couple of TV shows on DVD and a couple of movies before the lengthening period ended and the Vicodin withdrawal period began.

Even though June was technically the hardest month, because it was the lengthening month, I hope I never have to live a month like July ever again. In fact, I would take four Junes over just one July. The combination of having to go back to work after six weeks away, being on crutches, and going through Vicodin withdrawal made for some of the hardest days of my life.

Crutching around the apartment was one thing. Crutching around my office building was something else entirely. Never before did I realize how far away everything was. My arms were shot after just two days back at work. And on top of that, the Vicodin withdrawal, which I've gone into in much detail, was depleting any remaining strength I had. I went to bed every night at 7pm. Do you know how light it is outside at 7pm in the summer? July sucked.

By the end of July, though, I was almost off the Vicodin and almost off the crutches completely. I felt more like myself. I finally got my appetite back. I estimate that I lost about 15 pounds in the two months of being on pain medication and then going through withdrawal from that pain medication. Before the surgery I was a very healthy eater, but since I couldn't seem to eat anything during June and July, I started eating pretty much whatever I wanted, since I figured that if I wanted pancakes, I might as well eat them, since they might be the only thing I ate all day.

As a result, I gained back all the weight, and then some, during the month of August. I start eating better again in September, and if I can manage to not gain any more weight in the coming weeks of limited mobility after surgery, I will have gained only about five to seven pounds during this process, which is not so bad for four and half months of inactivity.

I think I was in too much pain in June and too tired in July to be depressed. That was the toughest part of August. I went six weeks without going to the doctor and seeing xrays to show me if my bone was growing as fast as it should. I had no idea if my bone was on track for a late October fixator removal, or if, because I was an adult, the process was going to take longer than even my doctor finally admitted to me it would take.

August is when my idea of what the leg lengthening process would be like came the most true. I watched a lot of TV, went through a lot of movies and even read some books. Whenever I wasn't at work, I just sat around my apartment and tried to relax. Going into the process, I thought August would be my last month, but now knowing that I had two and half more months left, at least, made August the most difficult month psychologically.

September was easier in all regards. I was usually able to get out of the house once on a weekend, even if it was just to have brunch in my neighborhood, and since I still had Fridays off from work, the three day weekends actually felt like enough time to rest up for four days of work. I even turned the TV off and starting spending most of my time planning for what I would do once the whole process was over. The list I came up with is below. I should post in a year and see how many of these things I actually wind up doing.

-take French lessons and go to Paris
-walk to and from work everyday
-do yoga
-transition to a mostly raw diet
-buy food primarily from farmer's markets
-buy a real piece of art for my apartment
-have an actual birthday party for myself
-visit our friends at their condo in Hawaii
-buy lots of cute new shoes that I don't have to worry about fitting a lift into!

Now that October is almost half over, and my surgery is coming up quickly, I'm feeling like I might actually make it out of this process alive. Though I feel physically and emotionally spent, I'm optimistic-- confident, even-- that in a just a few months, hopefully by the new year, it will all feel very much worth it.

GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE GOOD NEWS

Well, this is a first. My doctor's appointment today could not have gone better. After staring at my xrays for way too long and driving me crazy in the process, my doctor announced that my leg was ready to be fixator-free! He pulled out a little wrench (the same one I used to do the lengthening) and took my fixator apart right there in his office!

He then re-assembled my fixator and kept it in case I do re-break my leg and he has to put it back on. I didn't think to ask him to hold it to see how much it weighed, and I'm now thinking that I'm probably not going to see it again if all goes well, but that's okay. I'm now without fixator!

Here's a picture of my leg without the fixator:



And here's a picture of my leg with Lamar for perspective:



The surgery to remove the four pins and two screws still in my leg will be on October 24th. He said the surgery takes about half an hour. Until then, he told me to be very careful with my leg. Walking is fine, but any side to side movement should be avoided. He said I might want to bring my crutches around with me for support, so I think I will do that.

I'm sure he'll give me more specific instructions after my surgery (one thing I have learned about my doctor, he does not like to look very far into the future), but it sounds like the six weeks of crutches following surgery will not be so bad, more like just having them there for support and taking it easy.

He also told me that, all in all, I did pretty well with this whole thing. Thanks jerkface!

Now I can begin the final countdown.

Days until complete fixator removal: 14

ACHY, BREAKY?

As I am (hopefully) nearing the conclusion of my leg lengthening journey, I'm realizing that I haven't talked much at all about certain aspects of this process, and if this blog is to help others who are about to have leg lengthening, I should talk about those aspects in a little more detail.

One aspect of the process that has been present the entire time is the bone ache. And it's occurring to me to talk about it now, because ever since my doctor transferred all of the weight from my fixator to my bone, I've been having a lot of it.

The bone ache first started when the lengthening started. And it was horrible. It was the pain that needed the drugs, that kept me from sleeping, that never went away. It's hard to describe pain, but if you're about to have leg lengthening, the kind of pain you can expect is a deep bone ache that you can't do anything about.

But I will say that towards the end of the lengthening, the pain did seem to get a little better, so perhaps the pain is front-loaded in that way. My doctor did allude to something like that, and since my lengthening was only 3.5 weeks long, I might have not experienced the decrease in pain level that a person with a much longer lengthening period would.

Once the lengthening was over, the bone ache mostly went away. I would still have it a few times a day, but the intensity of it significantly decreased, and the sensation was almost comforting in a strange way. It felt like the bone was growing.

And now that the weight is fully on my bone, I'm experiencing much more bone ache. It's not back up to the level of intensity of the lengthening, but it's much more constant than it was during the consolidation period. And it's freaking me out. I know that if I were to actually break my bone, it wouldn't just ache a little and feel sore. I just hope that more achy doesn't mean possible breaky.

My doctor's appointment is one week from today. I'm excited at the idea that this could be my last week with the fixator. If he does take it off next week, I'll still have the pins, but maybe I'll actually be able to get a pair of jeans on over them!