How functional could you be during unilateral tibia lengthening?

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Since there are no good full weight-bearing internal nails on the market in the US, I am wondering how well I would be able to function lengthening one leg at a time with precice. Does anybody have experience doing this?

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I guess, I could rephrase a little bit too. Has anybody here been on crutches for an extended period of time? How functional were you?

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Here is a list of things I am hoping to do if I am able to go one leg at a time:

1) Work from home
2) Have a semi-normal social life
3) Drive back and forth to PT and do non physically challenging errands
4) Have normal sex life with my girlfriend
5) Attend a wedding of a really close friend 3 months post op.

Am I delusional to think I can do this on crutches, or is this reasonable?

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Quote from: Want-3-inches on June 01, 2021, 12:26:53 PMI have been thinking about this too. It seemed like a ridiculous idea at first, but I think it's doable and lets you be independent. If you are hiding this surgery then you have to stay away from everyone until both legs are done.

And in the worst case, first leg can take 10 months to fully consolidate (some say it takes 1-2 months per cm lengthened). You need the first leg to fully consolidate so that you can put all the weight on it. So it can be a very long process. See this guy called Sunshine's diary. He has still not consolidated 9 months after surgery. He did 8cm but even then it has been a long time.

The doc says he prefers to do 5 CM since this is tibia, he told me about 5 months post op to weight bear, so it would probably take another full month too to feel comfortable on my leg enough to go through this all again, so we are looking at year. In terms of hiding this, I don’t think that is really an option lol. I would be trading the secrecy of disappearing and doing this alone for the benefit of continuing to live the happy life that I have now.

 BTW this may have not been clarified, but I do have a rotational deformity that we are fixing too that causes me discomfort/functional restrictions (It is uncomfortable to put my feet together facing forward, and difficult to do exercises where knees and feet must be aligned) and is obvious to people when I walk and stand. That is at least 50 percent of the motivation for doing this surgery.