Wednesday, May 23, 2007

SEE YOU ON THE FLIP SIDE

Tomorrow, my best friend Claudia and her husband are coming to town for the day before they head up to Connecticut. Then later in the day, Kelly and I are training it to Philadelphia to spend the rest of the holiday weekend with her mom, sisters, and grandmother (now 75% more gay-friendly!).

So I'm signing off for now. Kelly might guest blog for me while I'm in the hospital, but if not, I'll be back on sometime around June 2nd. If anyone wants to visit me, either in the hospital, or when I'm back home, call my cell phone or Kelly's cell phone, she'll have both with her.

Wish me luck!

Days until surgery: 5

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

I THOUGHT YOU SAID IN HAITI

Last night I went to the main NYU hospital to give a unit of blood for my surgery. The hospital is so huge, and looks like a hotel, with all its amenities. As Kelly said, "it even has a stamp machine, we'd never have to leave!"

Kelly volunteered to donate a unit of her own blood, too. She donates blood often, because her blood type is O positive, aka the universal donor, and also because she's a good person. Since I'm not a good person, this experience was entirely new to me.

First they checked our iron levels with blood from pricking our fingers. Kelly kept failing the test, so they had to keep pricking her fingers. She wound up with many bloody fingers.

I couldn't stop laughing at the list of questions they ask you during the interview, mostly because I couldn't stop thinking about this Sarah Silverman episode. I can't figure out how to post a video, so you're just going to have to follow the link and trust me that it's hilarious.

When we finally got in the chairs to give blood, Kelly's veins turned out to be "beautiful", and the technician had no problem inserting the needle. Me, they needed all three technicians to find a vein.

When the needle went in, I knew immediately it was going to take some digging around to actually find the vein. So dig they did, with the needle, until it felt like they were coming out on the other side of my arm.

At this point, Kelly's almost done, her blood flowing out of her like some sort of waterfall. Once they finally found a vein on me, my blood flow more closely resembled a dying river.

"Squeeze tight," they told me, of the squishy foam thing in my hand. That didn't work. "Now try squeezing tight, then releasing." Still nothing. "Now just release."

About twenty minutes later, they had enough blood and it was over. Kelly got a free movie pass because she was a volunteer. I got nothing because I was only there for my own selfish behalf.

At least, I thought, if they don't use my blood for my surgery, then someone else can use it. Nope. They toss it. They must have some sort of good reason for that, but I don't know what it is.

They told me I was going to have a nasty bruise, but nothing has appeared so far. If one does, I'll be sure to post a picture of it.

Days until surgery: 8

Monday, May 21, 2007

SMALL WORLD

Last Friday, I randomly met my surgeon's daughter. She happens to be very good friends with someone I work with, and was in the office having lunch with him. She talked with me about her father for a while, about his "drinking problem," which she says is much better now, despite his constantly shaking hands. Oh, that's just hilarious.

But she told me something I didn't know, which is that my surgeon trained with the inventor of the current, now standard, method of limb lengthening. Which makes my surgeon 1) older than I thought and 2) very well trained.

Tonight I go to give a unit of my own blood for my surgery. I guess with the blood bank shortages, this is standard practice now. I've never given blood before (I know, I know, I'm a horrible person), so it should be an experience. Perhaps I'll also finally learn my blood type.

Days until surgery: 9

Friday, May 18, 2007

PRE-SURGERY TESTS

I had my pre-surgery tests this morning. I had them done at the hospital where I’m having my surgery instead of at my doctor’s office, and it turned out to be a good choice because I was able to do all the registration paperwork today instead of on the day of the surgery.

The only “tests” they did to me, though, were to take my blood pressure and a blood sample. I thought the tests would be more extensive, with at least some sort of heart monitoring, but I guess not.

They did ask me about a million questions, everything ranging from what type of alcohol I drink to what time of day I take my multi-vitamin. And I was asked all these questions three different times, first by the physician’s assistant, then by a nurse, then by the anesthesiologist. They were all really nice, though, and all wished me luck on my surgery.

It started to dawn on me, as the nurse was drawing blood out of my arm and I had my head turned away from the sight of it, as I always do when I get blood drawn, that I was going to need to seriously toughen up soon.

Days until surgery: 12

Thursday, May 17, 2007

DOING MY PART TO WARM THE GLOBE

Over the weekend we bought an air conditioner for the living room. Generally, I’m anti-air conditioning units. The ice cold air blowing out of them feels eerily unnatural, and you just know how horrible it is for the environment. Plus it makes my throat dry.

We’ve kept a window-A/C in the bedroom the last few summers because though I’ve tried, I’ve found it impossible to sleep without one during the months of July and August. It’s just too hot.

But the thought of spending the summer inside my apartment has forced me to swallow my anti-A/C rhetoric and pony up for a Freon-spewing beast for the living room, too.

Before heading to P.C. Richards to sell out, we measured our living room to determine how many BTUs we’d need in our new A/C. I was somewhat shocked to learn that our living room is maybe 250 square feet. It feels much larger than that to me.

We measured the rest of the apartment, and it’d be generous to call it 400 square feet total. I guess the fact that my first bedroom in Manhattan was around 80 square feet has skewed my perception of what constitutes a large room.

At any rate, here’s a handy square footage to BTU conversion chart for anyone looking to buy an A/C this summer:

100 to 150 square feet = 5,000 BTUs
150 to 250 square feet = 6,000 BTUs
250 to 300 square feet = 7,000 BTUs
300 to 350 square feet = 8,000 BTUs
350 to 400 square feet = 9,000 BTUs
400 to 450 square feet = 10,000 BTUs
450 to 550 square feet = 12,000 BTUs
550 to 700 square feet = 14,000 BTUs
700 to 1,000 square feet = 18,000 BTUs
1,000 to 1,400 square feet = 24,000 BTUs

And if you're planning to buy an A/C, do it now. They are super cheap. We got this 10,000 BTU A/C for only $250. I’m sure that on the first hot day of the summer, prices will double.

Days until surgery: 13

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

MY ABS HURT TOO

A few days ago I decided that I wanted to start a modified exercise routine. My thinking was that I would do it throughout the summer, along with whatever knee and ankle exercises I need to do as part of my physical therapy.

Since I’ll be wearing the external fixator all summer, I built the routine around exercises that I can do on a mat on the floor of my apartment. So it’s mostly arm and ab work, with a little bit of yoga.

I started it on Sunday, thinking that if I do it everyday until the surgery, it would become a habit and therefore easier to resume doing after the surgery. What I didn’t anticipate is how freaking sore it would make me.

It’s very humbling to go from being able to do hundreds of crunches a day just a few years ago (okay, seven years ago), to being so incredibly sore from doing one set of leg raises.

Also, whatever ability to do push-ups I once had is now gone. I can barely eek out ten, and that’s on my knees!

I’ve been mostly inactive the last couple of years because of my back pain. But I hadn’t realized just how out of shape I’d become. It’s going to be a long road to getting back into shape, especially when I add in all the rehab I’m going to be doing for my leg.

But I’m making a commitment to myself right now that from here on out, daily exercise is going to be a part of my life.

Days until surgery: 14

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

MY FOOT HURTS

My right foot is hurting a lot lately, and it’s reminding me of yet another reason to have this surgery. Currently, I wear a half inch thick lift in my right shoe to make up half of the distance between my leg lengths. This helps somewhat with the back pain, because it keeps my pelvis sort of in place instead of allowing it to drop down completely.

Here’s the lift I wear:



It’s called the Clearly Adjustable lift. Its best quality is that it’s made of hard plastic, meaning that unlike foam or rubber lifts, it’ll never compress or flatten over time and will always be a half an inch thick.

Its major downside is that, as hard plastic, it’s really freaking hard. It’s killing my heel from how hard it is, even though I wear a foam insole over it to cushion it.

The only shoe the lift will fit into are my high backed New Balance sneakers. Now, I love my New Balances. I have no problem wearing them. But it’s not like I can wear New Balances everyday for the rest of my life.

Another problem of wearing such a high lift is that it’s kind of like wearing a high heel, in that your foot is slanted upward. I only wear high heels to weddings, and then I’m usually drunk, so my foot was certainly not used to the high heel effect. The tendons along the bottom of my foot have become extremely sore. I hope I haven't done permanent damage to them.

So there is one definite upside to this surgery: I get to throw the stupid lift away! Yay!

Days until surgery: 15

ADDENDUM: I had lunch with my friend Heather today in the park. It was significant.

Here's a picture of Heather:

Monday, May 14, 2007

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

I’m starting to think now about any supplements I might want to take and dietary changes I might want to make after my surgery.

I already take 500 mg of calcium everyday, just to supplement the calcium in my diet, but I’m going to increase it to 1,500 mg per day. This is obviously to support bone health.

I already take a multi-vitamin, but I might take some additional vitamin C to boost my immune system. Since I’ll have open wounds on my leg for three months, I’m thinking that keeping a strong immune system will be essential to staving off infection. Along those same lines, I might take 30 mg of zinc a day, which aside from strengthening the immune system also apparently promotes cell regeneration and growth.

I’m a little more uncertain about other supplements I’ve read about, or been advised to take. Comfrey and symphytum promote healing, but seem to be somewhat controversial, and there’s an FDA warning about them and their possible harmful effects.

The biggest change I’m planning to my diet will be the inclusion of more protein. As a vegetarian, I don’t eat very much animal protein. Aside from a little bit of cheese everyday, I’m practically vegan. I’m not a huge fan of eggs, but I’m going to try to include at least egg whites in my diet everyday. I think the extra animal protein will be essential in growing and healing my new bone.

There are some big no-no’s health wise that I need to avoid. On the don’ts list is smoking, which impedes bone growth, so much so that the lengthening process can be almost twice as long for smokers as nonsmokers. I don’t smoke, so no problem there.

Ibuprofen is another don’t, it also impedes bone growth. So no Advil, no Motrin, no Aleve. I assume my pain pills will be more than sufficient for whatever pain I’m having, so this shouldn’t be a problem either.

My doctor also told me absolutely no drinking. Though when I pressed him on it, he said one drink every once in a while is fine. I assumed from that response that the main reason for the no drinking rule is that one could fall down or do some other sort of damage to oneself while drunk. Since I don’t want to be a moron, I’ll probably avoid drinking, too. Sad for me.

I’m also to avoid lakes, oceans, beaches, rivers, and ponds like the plague. My doctor tried to explain to me the infections he’s seen resulting from these bodies of water, but then he stopped and said, “Just don’t go anywhere near them!” Okay, doc. Calm down. Jesus.

Pools are okay, because the chlorine kills any living organisms that might be floating around in the water, but I’m probably going to avoid them too, just to be safe.

I know some of you have had surgeries/injuries before, so if you have any advice on supplements or dietary changes I should be thinking about, let me know!

Days until surgery: 16

Friday, May 11, 2007

A FEW GOOD TV SHOWS

I’m looking for a few good TV shows that I can rent on DVD to get me through the summer. Below is a list of shows I’ve already seen all the way through, some of them more than once. Some of them more times than I’m comfortable admitting.

So let me know if you have any suggestions! But no Lost. I refuse to get into a show that plans to drag itself out into 2010.

• The Sopranos
• Six Feet Under
• Sex and the City
• Rome
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Angel
• Freaks & Geeks
• Nip/Tuck
• The Office
• Arrested Development
• Seinfeld
• Friends

Days until surgery: 19

Thursday, May 10, 2007

PLEASE TO ENJOY: SOME LINKS

I’ve added a links section. Just a few to start with. I’ll probably add more as I come across them. For those of you interested in the process of limb lengthening, or in seeing pictures of people much more messed up than myself, these are for you.

Those with strong stomachs should be sure to check out the Hospital for Special Surgery’s “Before & After Photos” page. There are some gnarly pictures on there. Yeesh.

Days until surgery: 20

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

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

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

I GOT AN ANGRY INCH

How does one reach age twenty-nine and not know they have a one inch difference in their leg lengths? Well, I’ve always known I had *some* difference. I just never thought it was that big of a deal. Whenever I was standing, I would just shift my weight from one foot to the other. That’s what all the cool kids were doing anyway.

I started having back pain around the age of fourteen, which as it so happens is also around the time I had a big growth spurt. Looking back now, this is probably when my left leg decided to outgrow my right leg.

Also at the age of fourteen is when I started playing volleyball year round. I had three hour long practices everyday. I spent every weekend in southern California at tournaments. Everything on my body hurt, all the time. The back pain didn’t necessarily stand out. The same deal in college. Year round volleyball, body always hurting. Drinking a lot of beer seemed to help.

When I graduated college, I stopped doing any sort of strenuous physical activity. I got fat. Then after a few years I got tired of being fat and decided to start working out again. And also to stop eating chocolate chip pancakes for dinner every night.

The back pain immediately returned. It stood out much more sharply now that nothing else on my body hurt. I waited about a year and a half before I did anything about it, finally going to a physical therapist in the fall of 2006.

You have a leg length difference, he told me. Yeah, so? It’s probably causing your back pain, you know. Oh. Huh. Who knew?

My pelvis had dropped on my right side, tilting downward so that both my feet could be on the ground. Titled pelvis = back pain.

Over the next few months, my physical therapist worked to realign my pelvis using manual manipulation. I started to feel better. He also gave me a small lift to wear in my right shoe. No biggie, I thought. I’ll wear the small lift, and everything will be peachy from here on out.

But the back pain only ever got about 25% better. One day I was curious as to exactly how much of a difference I had. I pulled a few books of varying heights out of my bookcase, standing on them in front of a mirror until my hip bones were level with each other. Book after book, my right side was still lower. Finally, I found one that leveled me. And it was an inch thick.

Here’s me standing on the book:


And here’s me standing flat on the floor:


So why not just wear an inch thick lift, you ask? Well, you can’t, really, because your foot won’t stay in the shoe. Anything over a half of an inch needs to be built into the sole of a shoe.

So why not just wear one shoe bulked up one inch to correct it? That’s the question I get most from the naysayers. Why would you subject yourself to the long, painful, and possibly wrought with complications process of leg lengthening, just to correct one inch of difference between your legs? Stop being so vain and just wear the bulked up shoe!

If you’re nodding your head right now, thinking, yeah, why don’t you? Try this: put on one shoe, a thick soled one, like a sneaker. Leave the other shoe off. Now walk around for a bit. Now imagine walking like that your entire life. Don’t want to? Yeah, me neither.

So surgery it is! If you still don’t agree with my decision, take heart in knowing that I couldn’t care less what you think. Yay!

Days until surgery: 22

Monday, May 7, 2007

POST THE FIRST

Welcome to Allison and the Angry Inch!*

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my leg lengthening surgery and all that follows. I figured this was a good way to keep family members and friends up to date on my condition. And, more importantly to me, it’s a way to keep my sanity as I spend most of the summer trapped in my 5th floor walk up apartment.

So for the next several months, I’ll report here on the ins and outs of my leg lengthening process. I’ll even include all the gory pictures. And I’ll probably also review whatever books I read or movies/television shows I watch in order to stave off the horrible horrible boredom.

My surgery is scheduled for May 30th. Until then, here’s a picture of a puppy:




Days until surgery: 23

* Special shout out to Sarah Niersbach for helping me come up with the name of this blog.