BelowTheMean – Stryde Femurs w/ Dr. Debiparshad – Nov 2020

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Thanks for the update. I feel ya on the discomfort after lengthening sessions. Keep up the energy and dedication!

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Hey BTM - Thanks for the detailed diary.  Very helpful. You go back home and work already? Your gait on the last vid looked pretty damn good! Hope you’re doing well. Stay strong 💪

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Hey BTM, I am following your diary and I can say that it is a great collaboration for this forum, especially for me that I am planning to perform LL in a few years with Dr. Debiparshad, I hope you have a good recovery and that everything will go well by the end of the process.
I would like to emphasize that your videos are great for us to know how your LL process is going.

I'm sorry for my english from google translator, i will improve it.

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Quote from: Froggy on December 13, 2020, 09:18:24 PMThanks for the update. I feel ya on the discomfort after lengthening sessions. Keep up the energy and dedication!
Thanks, you keep pushing too!

Quote from: L8GrowthSpurt on December 15, 2020, 02:18:56 AMHey BTM - Thanks for the detailed diary.  Very helpful. You go back home and work already? Your gait on the last vid looked pretty damn good! Hope you’re doing well. Stay strong
I've been working since week 3 and I just got home.

Quote from: edsvkg on December 15, 2020, 03:55:39 PMHey BTM, I am following your diary and I can say that it is a great collaboration for this forum, especially for me that I am planning to perform LL in a few years with Dr. Debiparshad, I hope you have a good recovery and that everything will go well by the end of the process.
I would like to emphasize that your videos are great for us to know how your LL process is going.
Good luck with everything. I will try and post videos when I feel like there's something interesting to show. I don't know if I'm going to improve my gait much over the next two months though tbh.

Surgery Day +27, Lengthening Day 24 (+1mm, 24.66mm total)

Sleep was so bad last night that I simply gave up on sleeping after just four hours in bed. Even though I took a Norco right before going to bed, I basically woke up once every single hour and after four hours I was fully awake, hungry, and still super tired. I felt like I spent the whole night tossing and turning, trying to sleep in every single position but not being able to get rid of the pain no matter what. After getting up and going to the bathroom, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I did my morning routine then returned and sat on the bed. My brain wasn’t functioning very quickly, so all I could do is consume some mindless entertainment, and hoping that I would be tired enough to want to take a nap at some point. After the fiasco yesterday with the second Norco pill, I was not going to try taking a second pill again today. After watching TV for an hour and still feeling like crap in my legs, I decided to take an acetaminophen and eat breakfast. Sometimes I feel like the distraction phase is just one giant experiment with different pain medications.

After breakfast I was feeling a bit better. I watched some more TV to distract myself, but it didn’t really work. After a short while I was ready to do my first lengthening session of the day. I did a full set of PT exercises and stretches. Surprisingly all of the previous pain I had when exercising is gone now. My original left knee area pain has been gone for days, and today the pain I was feeling around the bone cut area over the last few days is gone as well. I can do all of my exercises normally, although everything is a little tighter than before. I do have one new type of pain, but it only happens when I do the quad stretch too far on my left side. I think my knee has a little bit of pain when that happens, though it feels quite different than the previous knee pain (pain from using my muscles before vs pain from stretching now.) I didn’t have a lot of energy while doing the exercises and stretching, but I got them done.

Next I used the ERC on each leg. I felt a bit tired even holding the ERC over my quad. I didn’t feel anything in my legs immediately after using the ERC, but after I had walked around a bit and set the ERC down, I noticed that I was feeling a little bit of the uncomfortable lengthening aftereffect. I sat down on the bed and massaged my legs, though it didn’t help much. I was hoping that it would just go away soon. I played some music on my laptop, but that didn’t help my mood much. I did start to get a little sleepy though, and I repositioned my pillow so I was in more of a reclining position. That made me fall asleep for just over an hour, which was nice. Unfortunately I wasn’t really any more refreshed when I woke up, and my legs had the exact same level of stiffness and uncomfortableness that they did just before I fell asleep. I would have to try my old trick - playing games.

Fortunately this worked well. I was distracted and forgot all about my pain and it lasted past when I stopped playing. At this point it was barely noon and I was already starving even though I ate a big breakfast. I think lengthening and building new bones definitely uses more calories than normal, and this is definitely something I can observe from my diet. However, painkillers and being in pain definitely affects my appetite and mood as well. Since I was hungry, I got up to use the bathroom and heat up some food. While walking around the Airbnb I felt pretty good even though I didn’t have any painkillers and my legs weren’t really warmed up. I thought about taking a walk outside later. Today’s high was in the single digits Celsius (~40 F) so it would be pretty cold, but I figured it wouldn’t be a problem to take a walk anyway since I could just wear my jacket out. It’s still warmer than it would be back home and I don’t know how much public walking I’m willing to do in a densely populated area where I might run into someone I know. Also, if it hasn’t already snowed back home, I’m sure the snow will accumulate soon. It’s one thing to fully weight-bear on the Stryde nails, but I don’t think any doctor would recommend walking outdoors as exercise on icy sidewalks lol.

After lunch I decided to try and get some work done. I didn’t do any work at all yesterday, so I would have to try and do some today so next week won’t be that hectic, especially with a mid-week flight. First though, I would stretch a little. I don’t think it would hurt to increase my daily stretching. I’m not sure if I currently am stretching too little, but I do feel like it’s getting harder to stretch my hamstrings as far as I used to be able to. Fortunately I can still get a good angle, but I think I can barely hook my fingers over my toes now. While stretching I realized I could watch some football, so I turned the TV on and let it play in the background while I finished my stretches, then continued to work a bit. Unfortunately, the whole time I was trying to work I was distracted. My legs were very uncomfortable, in the same way that I feel an aftereffect from lengthening. Pretty much nothing was able to get rid of the feeling so I just suffered and worked and I was kind of tired and sleepy too, but didn’t feel like going to sleep.

Eventually I decided to do another set of stretches, take acetaminophen, and then do my outdoor walk. Since my legs didn’t feel as good today as they did yesterday (both indoors and outdoors) I realized I wouldn’t be able to walk as far, so I focused on my gait instead. I did two shorter laps on the main sidewalk without going into the next neighborhood down. One interesting thing I noticed was that my left leg was indeed still weaker than my right leg. The main reason I didn’t notice it before was because I could walk on it without the cane and it felt about the same as my right leg. However, when I was practicing my gait, I found that my entire body swung to the left when I was fully weight bearing on my left leg, but when I was partially supporting the weight on my cane, my body didn’t swing because I was counterbalancing the weakness with the cane. My body was distributing the weight so well I didn’t even notice. I think if I didn’t notice this and continued only using the cane on my left leg, I would eventually have an even bigger difference between my left and right leg. Therefore, for part of the walk I used the cane on my right side, and on my left side I would put my weight down while trying not to sway.

My left leg got tired pretty quickly though, which is good. I think what I’m doing probably beats out exercising in terms of workout efficiency and I know that fixing this issue will improve my gait. After that I just walked back to the Airbnb sloppily since I didn’t have enough muscle strength left to walk with a proper gait. Overall, I was much more tired than yesterday the whole time. I don’t know if it’s my legs that are weak or if I lack sleep, or one of the many other reasons that I could be weaker today, but regardless of the reason I pushed a bit and ended up walking half a mile (800m) in just under 20 minutes, so a 40 minute per mile pace. I walked my fastest yesterday (about 36 minutes per mile) even including slanted sidewalks and a longer distance, so both in terms of feelings and objective stats, I was weaker today.

When I got back inside I changed back into indoor clothing. The TV was still on so I did some stretches on the bed while watching football and then used the ERC on each leg. My legs still felt uncomfortable after the lengthening, but not to the point of pain. Still, the noise in the background was a great distraction. After that I lay in bed trying to get some work done while managing the pain in my legs. I planned to take a hot shower at night as a form of pain management. Then I began to feel very sleepy. Even though it was dinnertime, here was my chance to take a nap. I draped a towel over my legs as a blanket and then closed my eyes. As I had already started feeling it, I passed out quickly. I woke up a few times to adjust my legs, but I basically got a nap that was over two hours long. In fact, when I got up I was still sleepy and could have probably continued to sleep for a while, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to mess up my sleep routine too badly. My legs were very stiff, stuffy and uncomfortable when I woke up. Why is it that I can fall asleep with legs like this right now, but not in the middle of the night? My sleep was so solid that I had what felt like a continuous dream over the entire two hours.

As I got up, I hobbled over to the bathroom and then to the kitchenette. It was a bit late for dinner, but I was hungry so I heated up a ton of leftovers. I find it a bit crazy how hungry I have been every few hours, given how much I feel like I’m eating with every meal. But it also means that my food prep back at home was correct. I have a ton of healthy calories stored in my pantry and freezer back at home waiting for me to go back and enjoy without having to go outside. I think cooking will put me in a better mood as well, as I like to make my own food (since I work out.) After waking up from my overall grogginess, I did feel quite refreshed with that nap. Combined with my few hours of sleep last night and the nap earlier in the day I think I almost have a full day's worth of sleep. I’m not sure the biological recovery is the same as actually getting 8 hours of sleep, but it’s better than sleeping sporadically for 3 or 4 hours last night and not taking any naps.

While eating and watching YouTube, I realized that my legs weren’t as painful as when I had just woken up. It was almost like every morning, when my legs would be quite stiff when I had just awakened, but somehow always felt better after I had been up for a bit. I wasn’t going to complain about my legs feeling better though, but I had another lengthening to do before going to bed, which might tighten my legs up again. It was getting a bit late, so I decided to take a shower. The second shower was much easier than the first and I didn’t even really think much of it. My legs got tired sooner than last time, but I did go out for a walk today so that’s probably why. After drying off and changing into pajamas, I did a set of stretches on the bed. Surprisingly I thought that after taking a hot shower that I would be more limber and flexible, but this was not the case. I’m honestly feeling like I’m getting less and less flexible each day, which might be due to the lengthening, even though I’m not even at one inch yet. One inch of growth is probably worth more than one inch of loss in flexibility.

I finished the stretches, even though it was a little difficult. Then I lengthened each leg and put away the ERC. I felt a light aftereffect, but only on the left leg this time. I’m still assuming the right leg successfully lengthened though, since I don’t always get the aftereffect every time I lengthen. However, before this if I felt the uncomfortable aftereffect of lengthening at all it would have been on both legs. This is actually the first time I only felt it on one leg. At this point I figured I could go to bed. Even though it was late, if I slept now I would probably wake up way early the next morning, which is fine since the weekend kind of just flew by and I still need to catch up on work somehow. I took a Norco and then went to bed.

Surgery Day +28, Lengthening Day 25 (+1mm, 25.66mm total)

Last night when I went to bed I wasn’t tired or sleepy. I tossed and turned for a bit since my legs felt stiff and at one point I was on my stomach and I lifted my left leg up but the blanket was stuck and it hurt my knee a bunch. I felt like the Norco I took wasn’t doing anything since I was in pain from that. Fortunately it wasn’t like this for too long since I somehow managed to fall asleep shortly afterwards. I remember waking up once in the middle of the night and looking at my watch, but aside from that I slept very well until my alarm went off. My watch data shows that my total sleep time was just shy of 6 hours out of 6.4 hours in bed and that I woke up only twice last night and both times were very brief. That's probably the best ratio I’ve had in quite a while. When I woke up I turned off the alarm and lay in bed for about the length of a snooze. I wasn’t tired or sleepy, but my legs were a bit stiff as usual and I was thinking that I could have slept more if my alarm didn’t go off. However, it was time to get up and start working.

I got up and walked to the bathroom or my morning routine. The first few steps were weak, but my legs quickly regained their strength as I got to the bathroom and stood for a while. I came back to the main room and I was already feeling okay in my legs. The Wifi was down in the Airbnb, but I tethered my work laptop to my phone and signed on. It didn’t look like anyone was looking for me yet, though I knew it would get very busy today so I needed to get a few things completed before then. I took my morning Xarelto, but no painkillers since I didn’t feel like I needed any yet. Then I proceeded to make and eat a dinner-sized breakfast, then got ready to start my exercise and stretch routines. After doing those, I lengthened both legs with the ERC. I didn’t really feel an aftereffect immediately in either leg, so I proceeded to focus on work for the rest of the morning.

About an hour later I realized that my legs were actually kind of feeling the lengthening aftereffect a little bit. They weren’t in pain, but uncomfortable enough to distract my focus. I decided to take an acetaminophen since it was still pretty early in the morning and I wouldn’t be going to PT until later in the afternoon and I would be clear to take more painkillers by then. I continued to work all morning, only taking a break when Ronnie from Dr. D’s office came to pick up the wheelchair and walker I borrowed from the office, which I was really thankful for since I did not have a rental car or an easy way to return them before leaving Las Vegas. I actually only used the wheelchair once to go like 10 feet the night I got out of the hospital, so I don’t I actually needed the wheelchair. The walker I did use for quite a while though, even when I was perfectly capable of just using the cane, since I felt safer with the walker.

While working all day, I occasionally took bathroom and snack breaks and each time I got up I felt a bit stiff, but while sitting in bed working my legs didn’t really feel that bad. I took an extra long break to do some exercises and the midday lengthening session. Everything was normal for this session, though I feel like half an hour after lengthening, the area in the back of my legs (opposite of the knee, between hamstrings and calves) was feeling a little tight. Sitting with my knees bent made that feeling go away, but I think I need to do more hamstring stretches in general to continue lengthening, or I will quickly lose flexibility. Finally, after a full day of meetings and trying to get work done at the same time, I had to sign off and get to PT on time. I took my painkillers and called a car and headed over quickly. This was my last day of PT in Vegas, so it was time to say goodbye to all the staff that have been working with me over the last month.

I entered PT and checked in at the front desk. Another new PT assistant was working today, but overall the place wasn’t as busy as last time, so he was able to help with all of the equipment I needed and I got through all my exercises pretty efficiently. I actually did many of them with more weight or resistance. For PT, I feel like I am much stronger than last week so I’m definitely gaining some more access to my leg muscles. Even when standing up from a sitting position, I was able to stand up from a very low bench, where my knees were bent 90 degrees while sitting. I don’t think I can do anything resembling a squat yet, but I also haven’t needed to do that. Overall I left PT in a good mood and feeling like I was improving. I was determined to walk to the pizza place nearby and order a pizza for takeout. However, I walked about 200 meters and then realized that I left my phone at PT, so I had to walk back and get it, then walk all the way to the pizza place. The pizza place was in the same direction as the 7-Eleven that I visited earlier in my journal, but a bit further of a walk. In total since I had to turn around I walked 0.6 miles (about 1km) when I should have walked 0.35 miles (600 meters.)

I arrived at the pizza place and the door was almost too heavy for me to pull open. However, I managed it and then went to the front to place an order. I got a large specialty pizza since it seemed pretty big. That way I should have some leftovers to eat for breakfast or lunch tomorrow. It took about 15 minutes for my pizza to finish cooking and then I called a car and waited another 5 or so minutes for that. While I was leaving I actually couldn’t push the front door all the way open with my cane in one hand and pizza in the other, but fortunately a waitress was nearby and rushed over to help me. That was probably the single moment that I needed the most help in public since the surgery. After that it was smooth sailing to get back to the Airbnb. Upon arriving and getting ready to eat I realized that the pizza I ordered was a thin crust. No wonder it seemed so light given the size of the box. Sadly I would not have any leftovers for tomorrow. I devoured the entire large pizza in about 10 minutes and honestly I’m not even 100% sure I was full, but I knew I probably wouldn’t need to eat for the rest of the night at least.

Afterwards, I got up to use the bathroom and realized that my legs were kind of dead. After resting for a few minutes and then eating, my legs finally stopped having to work hard, so they must have decided to go stiff. Maybe stiff legs aren’t as painful when resting. Regardless I wasn’t planning on doing much physical activity for the rest of the night except for the last lengthening. At this point I remembered that I still had quite a bit of work to catch up on since I would be very busy tomorrow and probably wouldn’t get any work done at all. I had a few hours so I continued to work. The Airbnb host had some friends over for some kind of party and they were playing a game that sounded like they needed to shuffle tiles every so often so it was quite loud when they did. I don’t think it’s Mahjong because they were speaking Spanish, but it sure sounded like it was. I just played some music to drown out their noise in my room. It wasn’t distracting to the point where I would lose focus on work, and even in that case it’s probably better to be distracted by noise than leg pain.

Finally, it was time for the last lengthening of the day on my last night in Las Vegas. I did a light set of exercises and a full set of stretches. The stretches felt extra hard, but I was in no rush so I waited a little longer between stretches. After that I lengthened each leg past the one inch mark. Time has passed by slowly, but it has also passed quickly. I can’t believe I’m at the one inch mark now! I feel like I should notice a difference in my height, and sometimes I think I do, but not to the point where I’m sure I’m taller. Maybe that will change when I return to a familiar environment, but I won’t know until I do. Both my legs were uncomfortable after lengthening, but I tried to relax for a little bit before it was time to go to bed. Eventually I popped a Norco and got ready to go to bed. Dr D’s office had called earlier and moved my appointment to first thing in the morning, so I would definitely have to wake up early. Since I’ve been waking up super early for work, it shouldn’t be a problem. I returned from the bathroom and turned off all the lights and went to sleep thinking excitedly about how I was finally about to go home.

Surgery Day +29, Lengthening Day 26 (+1mm, 26.66mm total)

When I woke up I actually didn’t remember too much from how I slept the night before, but I did remember that sleep wasn’t too great. I was still pretty tired, but had been tossing and turning for the last 15 minutes fully conscious. When I checked my watch data, I saw that it took forever to fall asleep, I woke up for a while in the middle, and then when I last woke up just before 5:30 I couldn’t fall asleep again. In total for 5.1 hours in bed I slept for 4.4 hours. I got up to use the bathroom and decided to stay awake. I would actually have quite a few chances to nap later today. Unfortunately, I had some work to do and I didn’t want to take my Xarelto before 7am, so I worked for a while pre-dawn with no painkillers. It wasn’t too bad, since the act of waking up and sitting makes my legs less stiff somehow. Then my alarm for 7am went off and I took a Xarelto and acetaminophen.

I proceeded to do my leg exercises and stretching to get ready for an early lengthening. I felt okay with the workout, especially given how bad my rest was last night. I proceeded to run the ERC on each leg and hit the 26 mm mark. I then had some snacks and water, and browsed the morning news since I had a tiny bit of time to burn before heading to Dr. D’s office. Once it was time I called a car to head over to the clinic. I assumed the waiting area should be relatively empty today since it was so early in the morning and this was indeed the case. Everything was kind of like clockwork now, I went in and got my height and weight measured. I lost about 5 pounds in the last two weeks and it looked like I was a bit above 5’7” on the stadiometer, though I have some APT so I definitely am not able to stand at my full height. Next came the full set of x-rays, which were easier to take than last time. It’s not easy to stand or lay down and hold a certain position for the machine without feeling any pain. After that and answering all the basic questions, it was time to meet with the doctor.

Dr. D inspected my incisions and my gait. It looks like my incisions are healing up very nicely, but he was concerned about pigmentation in the scars and recommended a bleaching cream to try when I was further along in the scarring phase. He told me to avoid the sun on my scars the best I can since it can cause hyperpigmentation. He also cleared me for swimming, hot tubs, baths, etc. which I was very happy about since I have heard hot baths help a lot during the lengthening phase, especially when your knees are in pain. As for my gait, he also noticed that I swayed more when weight bearing on my left foot and said I needed to strengthen my hip abductors to reduce sway. Walking with the cane and compensating for the sway with the cane wouldn’t make it go away by itself. Aside from that, he said I was making good progress on my walk, but there were definitely other lengtheners who had better gait than me at this point. He also pointed out that I was taking less painkillers than the average lengthener at this point, but that I didn’t necessarily need to avoid taking painkillers, especially if I was feeling pain at PT, for example. He also said that I needed to be stretching constantly if I could, like doing reps with the resistance band while working, for example. He said that’s what the people who had the best gait did.

Next, for the x-rays they came out perfectly again. For the full leg x-ray, both sides were lengthened by exactly the same amount on the measuring tool. Both the front and lateral thigh x-rays showed callus growth on both sides, so I have clean growth on all four sides of both bones. The rate of callus growth is also good. Not so slow that I would have to slow lengthening and take more bone supplements, but not so fast that I’m at risk of premature consolidation. Really there’s nothing to complain about here. He mentioned that most people do not slow down after the first inch, but slowing down actually makes the process less painful since your soft tissue has more time to stretch and catch up with the bone growth. Slowing down costs time though, which is a valuable resource as well. I wonder if there is some point between 4-6 months after surgery, where both a fast lengthener and slow lengthener would be in the consolidation phase, that the slow lengthener catches up to the fast lengthener? Since consolidation by itself seems to make recovery faster. Who would actually be further along with consolidation and who would be more flexible? I would think that slowing down the rate of lengthening would slow you down on getting to consolidation, but lengthening slowly, you might be more flexible at the point of reaching 8cm than someone who lengthened fast, but maybe the person who lengthened fast would catch up on flexibility at some point further along when both people are the same number of days out from surgery.

For my lack of sleep, Dr. D said he could change my muscle relaxant to Valium and I could try Ambien as well. He also didn’t seem to be concerned about me taking Norco before sleeping. I just needed to send him a pharmacy back home to send the prescription to. I didn’t ask about any alternative forms of sleep therapy, and at this point I’m certainly willing to try what the doctor recommends. I will definitely be trying other methods to sleep though because not sleeping is just not going to work for me. Hopefully just being home would help my sleep, but I’m willing to take whatever helps me sleep. Also, I had completely forgotten to ask Dr. D if there was anything showing in the X-ray that might be reflective of the popping sound in my left femur, but he actually remembered this himself and told me that he looked closely at the left nail and there did not seem to be anything wrong with it. Since I had perfectly equal lengthening on both sides, that also means both nails should certainly be working correctly.

I also picked up the drugs that I ordered for the second month from the office. For my next set of x-rays, I got an x-ray order from Dr. D's team that I could bring into any radiology center to get the correct x-rays sent to the office, though apparently some places only take the order if it is directly faxed from the doctor. Also, there is no need to specifically find an EOS machine or worry about radiation apparently. EOS machines tend to be in children’s hospitals anyway, since they are more affected by X-ray radiation. For PT, I already had an idea of which PT I wanted to go to, so I would text that to Dr. D’s team later and they would also send that PT a referral and an order with all the exercise and stretch information that they needed to treat me. Dr. D said that getting massages was fine as well, so I plan to go to a licensed massage therapist once a week and PT at least 3 times a week once I get home, depending on how my schedule looks. Finally, I asked about flying and he said being on Xarelto makes flying a lot safer and that I didn’t need to move around constantly, but I should still move my legs if I remember to (and it’s something I would do even if I didn’t have CLL.) I felt better knowing that I could take a nap on the plane if I wanted to, because I definitely planned to try and sleep on the plane if I could. When I was leaving I did not schedule an appointment for my next visit since I wanted to check my early January schedule and flight prices, but I would probably schedule soon so I could save on travel costs. Everything is pretty much on track, so I left the doctor’s office quite content.

When I got back to the Airbnb from Dr. D’s office, I realized I was very hungry and hadn’t eaten anything yet. I didn’t have any leftovers, but I heated up two cans of soup in the microwave to tide me over until I could get to the airport food court. I consumed my soup quickly, along with some snacks and water. My Airbnb host texted me asking when I planned to check-out time and said I could check out later than usual if I needed to. I did plan to try and get another lengthening session completed before leaving the Airbnb since I would be checking the ERC in as soon as I reached the airport. First though, I needed to do some work. I proceeded to work for almost two hours even though I took the day off.

Finally it was time to pack my bags. I should at least try and get out of the Airbnb quickly since it was past check-out time. I mixed my old Xarelto pills into the new Xarelto bottle, and my old Norco pills into the new Norco bottle so I could toss two more pill containers and save some space in my bags. The expiration date on both is a year from now, so I don’t think mixing them really matters. I was going back with a little more stuff than I came with, so I would have to pack intelligently. Most of my clothes were in the dirty laundry bag, so I’d have to just stuff that in my luggage with as much air pushed out as I could. All the rest of my clothes I folded up and fit into my checked bag as well. I grabbed all the stuff in the bathroom and shoved it into my checked bag. All the stuff on the nightstand went into my backpack. I put my work laptop in my backpack in case I get bored at the airport and stuffed my personal laptop into my checked bag so I wouldn’t have to carry so much weight in my backpack. Not having to put the cane in my checked bag saved a little space as well. Overall I felt like my backpack was pretty light and wouldn’t put any extra strain on my nails, especially if I was walking with the cane.

Now it was time to do one last lengthening before leaving the Airbnb. I started my PT exercises and stretching. My legs actually still felt a bit tired, possibly from going to the doctor’s office earlier in the morning. It’s pretty sad when I can’t even handle a 90 minute appointment without being tired later in the day. I think it will definitely be a while before I physically recover from everything I’ve gone through. I managed to get through all the exercises and stretches though, and lengthened each leg. Although it had only been four hours since my first lengthening of the day, I surprisingly didn’t feel bad at all. Now came a moment of truth that I had been waiting for. I had come to Las Vegas with a pair of 30 inseam jeans that I wear often, but are normally a bit too long for me, and the bottom of the jeans covers the top part of my sneakers. Now I could see if I fit into these pants perfectly with my slightly longer legs. I took off my gym shorts and changed into the jeans. They went to my ankles instead of almost to my heels. I didn’t feel all that excited though, since it felt more like my pants shrank than my legs grew! I'm pretty sure I won't be able to wear these jeans with another two inches on my legs though! I then packed the ERC into it’s luggage container.

Finally, there was nothing left to do in the Airbnb except call a car to go to the airport. When my car almost got here, I texted the host that I was leaving and brought my stuff outside one item at a time. My checked bag was significantly heavier than the ERC, but it also had more wheels. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to lift the bag at any point, but if I did, I should be okay as long as both my feet are firmly planted on the ground. My ride arrived shortly after, and helped me load my bags into the trunk. I took a picture of the outside of the Airbnb that I lived in for a month with broken legs as a memory. Then we proceeded to head to the airport. This driver had actually picked me up before from Dr. D's office three weeks ago. I guess Vegas is a small enough place to get the same Uber driver twice. He actually remembered me since I had a walker last time and he said it looks like I’ve improved since I switched to the cane.

We arrived at the airport departures area next to a curbside check-in. The driver helped me unload my baggage at the side of the road, wished me well, and then drove off. The curbside check-in counter was empty as expected. I didn’t see anyone in sight that could help me. The ERC had two wheels and my checked luggage had four wheels. I basically used my luggage as a walker and pulled the ERC behind me and slowly made it to the baggage check area. I tagged both bags myself and then dropped them off with the airline staff. They didn’t even bother to check if my second checked bag was a medical device. I guess it looked close enough from the outside? The person checking my bags looked at my ticket and ID but didn’t look anything up on the computer or call me the wheelchair service.

I figured I was feeling pretty good at the moment so I could probably walk to the airport lounge and take a break there and then walk to the gate. I had quite a bit of time before my flight so I needed somewhere comfortable to sit, preferably with the ability to rest my feet on something. I didn’t really want to get wheeled around in a wheelchair anyway with the attention it would draw. I walked about 100 feet before starting to regret my decision. The first pre-check security gate was not open, I had to walk twice as far to get to the next open security gate. Going through security was interesting. It looked like they wanted me to go through the metal detector but then asked me if I had any metal in my body, to which I responded yes, so I had to go through the regular body scanner. They gave me a wooden cane and ran my metal one through the x-ray machine as well. Even after going through the body scanner they had to pat down my lower legs for some reason. At least it wasn’t my upper legs.

Once I got out of security I headed toward the airport lounge. Both it and my gate were in a different terminal, so I had to take two escalators and a tram to get to the right gate. At first I was nervous getting on the escalator, but I had enough speed to match the escalator when getting on and off. The tram ride was really short but I took one of the handicap seats since I really needed to sit down for a bit. On the other side I had to take a giant escalator up to the gates, which by this point I was an expert at already. When I got to the entrance of the concourse I took a look at the map. The lounge was not in the same branch as my departure gate, but I had plenty of time before my flight. I walked toward the lounge. Right outside the lounge there was a sub shop. I was pretty hungry so I ordered a giant sub and chomped it down, sitting in their socially distant seating area. Then I walked over to the entrance of the lounge only to see a tiny sheet of paper on the door that said the airport lounge was closed. I probably should have checked online. Unfortunately I had walked an extra few hundred meters for nothing.

I had nothing else to do here, so I walked over to my departure gate. I was so early that it was still “full” from all the people waiting for the flight departing before mine from the same gate. I found somewhere to sit down and unfortunately there would be nowhere to rest my feet so I tried to endure the pain. I wasn’t very successful. I tried a couple of different positions putting different amounts of pressure on my butt and feet, and bending my knees at various angles. Nothing was too comfortable. I think this is one thing that pre-LLers won’t understand until they experience it. Every single one of these sitting positions would have been fine before LL. I wouldn’t have to think twice about any of them before since no matter how I sat my baseline level of pain would always be 0/10. Now it basically varied from 2-4/10 depending on how I sat, and I couldn’t even stay in one position for too long either. The airport WiFi was fast so I tried to play a game on my phone. I could hardly focus and the screen literally felt like it was too far away for me to see things 100% clearly, even though it was the same distance I normally held my phone at. I think the phone felt further away because I was so focused on my legs. I did not get any benefit from the game and did not lose focus on my legs for even a second.

I had planned to get some work done while sitting on a comfortable couch in the airport lounge, but instead here I was suffering in the general boarding area where the chairs are basically designed to be uncomfortable. There was no way I could work right now. I didn’t even bother getting my laptop out. I saw a “laptop workstation” by the gate that had chargers and small tables to work on, but all the chairs were high stools, so I think those would have been even more uncomfortable than the gate seats. I eventually found some weird positions that I could tolerate. The first one was sitting on the edge of the seat and holding both armrests with my legs out straight in front of me. I looked like I was about to fall out of the chair, but this position allowed my legs to feel comfortable when they needed to be straight. However, when my knees needed to bend the best position was leaning forward with my knees as far back under the chair as possible and my elbows on the armrests. In fact this position worked so well that I actually dozed off for a bit, though it must have looked very weird to others when I was napping in that position (also lookalike like I was about to fall forward off of the chair.)

Finally it was around time to board the flight. I walked over to the restroom at the pace of a snail so I could go before boarding the plane. In the bathroom there was a row of guys at the urinals. Naturally when I lined up, my height dysphoria still kicked in since I realized I was the second shortest out of over 10 guys. My lengthening and hard work hadn’t really done anything yet, and the only guy shorter than me was clearly shorter than my original height. I really hope that the second and third inch do a lot more than the first one. I do think being another two inches taller here would have muddied the heights enough that I wouldn’t be able to tell if a good chunk of the guys were a little taller than me or the same height. Anyway, I quickly forgot about it and returned to the gate. An airline worker actually called me over and she said that she thought I would be here with a wheelchair. I said that I didn’t end up needing one but I would like them to get one ready for me at the destination. My home airport is huge and I was not planning to walk around over there. I already had over 5000 steps today and Dr. D said I should be averaging 2500/day during week five. Obviously my legs were already very tired.

Right when I sat back down, the flight actually started boarding. An airline employee found me in the gate area and asked If I wanted to board first and if I needed any help. I got onto the plane and I only had my light backpack on me so I was flying barebones, which is ideal. I put my backpack in the overhead bin since I was in the front row and didn’t have a seat in front of me to put it under. The flight attendant also said I had to put my cane in the overhead bin, which was reasonable. I didn’t want to hold onto it for the whole flight anyway. Plus the lavatory was right next to me so I didn’t need the cane even if I had to use the restroom. After everyone else boarded I remembered that I was planning to take a Norco for the flight, so I got my backpack back out of the overhead bin so I could pop the pill. The flight attendants hadn't given me any water yet, so I did the only thing I could, which is accumulate enough saliva to swallow the whole pill. It’s not a small pill by any means either. I managed to succeed by sticking a starburst candy under my tongue which produced a decent amount of saliva. Then I swallowed the pill, which was already a little bitter since I’m sure it was starting to dissolve in my saliva. I think the painkiller helped a bit as my legs hurt a bit less, though they were still constantly uncomfortable in the aircraft seat.

The flight itself wasn’t too bad. It was actually not packed at all on board, or at least I didn’t see too many people around me. I was able to stream movies onboard so I watched the new Harley Quinn movie, which was a perfect braindead action movie where I wouldn’t need to think about the plot at all. The whole time during the movie I would just switch my legs from straight and pushing off the wall in front of me to knees bent. Neither position was super comfortable, but the act of changing positions generally helped with pain. It was like at night when I have to keep changing positions to find a comfortable one, but I wasn't actively trying to fall asleep. After the first movie I still had time to watch at least part of a second one, so I watched Mulan. This one shows the crippled dad multiple times in the beginning, which immediately made me think of my own legs. At first I thought at least my impairment is only temporary unlike this character, but then I remember the character is just an actor who isn't actually crippled. I didn’t get a chance to finish the movie before the plane landed, but the couple of hours I was in the air were definitely tolerable. However, the thought of doing it two more times roundtrip before the end of the distraction phase made me shudder though.

I was one of the first to get off the plane, and there was a guy standing behind a wheelchair just outside the plane holding a sign with my name. I greeted him and sat down on the wheelchair and put my backpack on my lap. He pushed me to the baggage claim and my bags came out pretty quickly. Fortunately the ERC was still there. Even though I have like one or two grand worth of electronics in my other bag, the ERC would have cost me way more if I lost it. After grabbing both checked bags, he put the ERC under the wheelchair and pushed me with one hand while pulling my luggage in the other hand. We went to the rideshare pickup area in the airport. I had called a car as soon as he helped grab my luggage and it was waiting already. It’s much more expensive here than in Las Vegas because the airport is further out from the city, but I wasn’t exactly planning to take public transportation home. It was very cold outside and I only had a light jacket, but both the wheelchair pusher and the Uber driver were friendly and got me and my luggage into the car asap. I tipped the wheelchair guy and then headed out of the airport.

We took the highway into the city, which was not as congested as usual. When I finally got home it was almost midnight local time. Even though everything had gone perfectly smoothly and the plane even landed early, I still got back very late. The driver was even nice enough to bring my luggage into the front lobby of my building. When I entered my front door I realized that my place had a little musty smell, like no one had lived there for over a month. At least the lights still worked! It was cold since I had turned the heat to the minimum when I left, so I turned the heat back to a livable temperature and then I proceeded to unload just the basics from my luggage, which were my toiletries and chargers for my electronics. Then I went back out and grabbed the mail since I was pretty sure the mailbox was full. After I got back inside I looked around and disappointedly realized that I wasn’t any taller than before. I went over to the doorframe where I notched the wall at 169.5cm and 168cm for my morning and night heights. I took a measurement. I was barely over 170cm. I guess I’m only at 26mm right now, so that shouldn’t be surprising for my night height. Plus I have some APT, which is making it hard to straighten my back out perfectly and is surely reducing my height measurement. Nevertheless, the amount of height I had right this moment over my morning height was imperceivable, which led to a slight sense of disappointment. I can see now why many say the second and third inches make a much bigger difference in perception.

I heated up some food, then grabbed my laptop and took some notes down for my journal so I wouldn’t forget what to write about for today. While I was eating and writing I thought about all the stuff I could do now that I was at home, but I still needed to do my last lengthening of the day and then get some rest, so I’d basically have to push everything off to tomorrow. I can’t believe I still had enough energy to keep going at this point even though I didn’t take a nap during the day and barely slept last night. I laid out a yoga mat on the floor and started doing some PT exercises. I realized that I may or may not even be able to get up off the ground, but I’d deal with that later. First, exercises and stretching. Doing it on the ground was actually a bit easier than doing it on the bed at the Airbnb. Since the bed would move around and had no resistance it was actually harder to balance while doing some of the exercises. Once I finished my full set of everything I sat down on the couch with my feet on the ottoman to lengthen. This was probably the most comfortable I had been since I left the Airbnb this morning. Lengthening went great, and afterwards I immediately went to the bathroom to do my nighttime routine. Then I went to my bedroom, set an extra alarm, took a Norco, and tried to pass out quickly.

Surgery Day +30, Lengthening Day 27 (+1mm, 27.66mm total)

It’s true that there’s nowhere like home. My bed was much more comfortable than the one in the Airbnb. I don’t like the bed slipping around on hardwood when I move and the one in the Airbnb was on wheels. I had to constantly push it back against the wall, which was annoying. My own bed has a nice frame and backboard, and anti-slip pads under the feet so I don’t ever have to worry about it moving around no matter how much I move around on it. Somehow it was much more comfortable in my own bed in every single position compared to the Airbnb. I don’t know if it’s the type of mattress, or that I’m just used to it, or that the heat is turned to the exact temperature I want, but regardless of the reason, even when I woke up with stiff legs in the middle of the night, it felt better. It was almost to the point of questioning whether I should have returned after the first office visit instead of the second one. However, I would have had a much harder time getting around the airport at the two week mark as opposed to the four week mark. I did wake up at one point in the night with my whole body shivering. I don't think it was that cold in my room, so I'm just going to blame the Norco. I remember warming up quickly and falling back asleep though.

I woke up before my alarm, as usual in the past few weeks. I decided to get up so I turned off all my alarms. I checked my sleep data and saw that I got 5.5 hours of sleep out of 6 hours in bed, including a solid block of almost four hours. Not bad at all! Considering how late I slept due to the late flight and having a change in time zones, and walking so much yesterday, I think it was good sleep all things considered. Normally I should be able to stay in bed for eight hours trying to sleep. I also noticed my final step count for yesterday was over 7300, which I think is pretty crazy at the 1 month mark. Even over the last few days when I’ve been doing long walks outside every day, I’m only in the 3000-4000 range. That means I probably walked the equivalent of two miles over the course of yesterday! I’m very curious to see how my recovery progresses over the next few months. After going to the bathroom and doing my morning routine I checked my work email and I was immediately bombarded with urgent requests. It certainly felt like a Monday since I took yesterday off, but the amount of work I have in front of me also makes it feel like a Monday.

I made some breakfast quickly and then started working. I marked an empty spot on my calendar after my first meeting to lengthen. Since it was only a 15 minute block, I wouldn’t even have time to do a full PT and stretch set. I did the following: bicycle kicks, quad lifts, Thomas stretch, towel quad stretch, butterfly stretch, and a hip adductor exercise. Those added up to about 12 minutes, and I saved the last three minutes to run the ERC. This was the most rushed lengthening session I’ve had. I didn’t have time to stretch afterwards either, and immediately called into my next meeting and continued to work for the rest of the morning. Like Dr. D suggested yesterday, I tried to get in some hip exercises and other stretches while working if I could. I think it actually helped a decent amount because I was 99% sure that my workstation at home would be uncomfortable to use since my chair was pretty high, but I realized that there were two metal bars under my desk that were perfect for resting my legs on, or even doing exercises with. It guess it’s like one of those treadmill desks for normal people, except for LL patients hah.

I got a chance to take a break at lunch, where I spent a little more time heating up food to eat. Since it was cold out, hot food definitely uplifts my mood. After eating it I was back to work, but I was pretty sure I could get to a good spot and wrap everything up for the day before it was time for my next lengthening session. For the rest of the afternoon I ended up working partly on my desk and partly on the couch when I needed to rest my legs while they are extended with full support. Fortunately I did manage to finish up relatively early today and started exercising right afterwards. I did a medium set of PT exercises and stretches in anticipation of the next lengthening session. I feel like my hamstrings are falling behind a bit, so I need to focus on hamstrings, but they are the most painful as well (which sounds about right since they are the tightest big muscle for me.) Afterwards, I lengthened in my new dedicated lengthening spot on the couch. Haven’t really felt any aftereffects yet when lengthening at home, but I think I’m definitely a little bit tighter overall than a few days ago.

After my second lengthening I was a tiny bit sweaty from exercising, though not really that much since it was kind of cold even with the heat on. It was time to do what I was looking forward to quite a bit - take a bath. I got into the tub first before filling it with hot water because my tub walls are pretty high and I didn’t want to try getting in there with water. At my current flexibility level I was barely able to get over the edge since I had to bend my knee more than 90 degrees. I sat down and once the hot water covered my legs completely, I realized why hot baths had such a good rep on these forums. I really didn’t feel any pain in my legs in the bath and my skin felt really good as well. Unfortunately I was a little uncomfortable in my tailbone area since my butt has basically disappeared since the surgery and leaning back just a little bit made that bone push into the tub floor. Overall it was okay though, and if I bent my knees and lowered my body into the water it wouldn’t hurt there anymore, and if I really wanted to I'm sure I could find something soft to sit on. I soaked in the bath for way too long while thinking about life, CLL, and how I got here. Before the operation I would often sit in the tub with my feet about three inches away from the wall to feel how much further out of the water I would be if I was three inches taller. It always felt like a big difference and I would feel like the bathtub would become too small if I was taller. Of course, in reality this isn't the case. At just over an inch, when I sat with my feet flush against the tub wall I didn’t feel a thing. Even with my feet two inches from the tub wall, I still didn’t feel a thing. So far I haven’t felt any impact from lengthening yet. I really hope that changes after I cross 5cm. I definitely haven’t reached the point where I can say “this was worth it” yet and I’ve been working at it for a full month. I'm still running on projections and hope.

After my bath I showered as well to actually clean myself, then dried off and went to make dinner. I still wasn’t in the mood to cook, but I had plenty of microwavable food including protein sources, so I continued to heat up easy food to eat. I plan to start cooking by this weekend at the latest. I ate slowly on my desk and realized that my legs were in a little bit of pain, no matter if my knees were bent or straight. I hadn’t taken any painkillers today except for one acetaminophen first thing in the morning, so I probably didn’t have anything in me right now. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take anything for the last lengthening, but I still had a few hours before then. Now that I actually had some free time, there were a few things that I needed to get done that I couldn’t in Las Vegas now that I was at home. I also had a ton of chores to do and I haven't even unpacked everything from my trip yet. Therefore I stayed pretty busy until late at night when it was time to do my last lengthening.

Also, after dinner I noticed that the local PT office that I had selected was closed already. Dr. D’s team had forwarded a referral and instructions to them this morning. However, they didn’t contact me at all today. I guess I will call in tomorrow to see when I can start scheduling PT since I didn’t want to fall too far behind. I’m definitely one of those people who needs the extra push from PT for stretching, especially if there is pain involved. Before LL when I was trying to lift heavy in the gym, the type of pain I would feel if I was doing the lift correctly is nothing compared to LL pains. When I push myself hard at PT, there is no "good pain". There are only two levels of pain: 1) “don’t feel it with the painkiller, keep going” pain and 2) “hurts even with the painkiller, make it stop” pain. I don't want to deal with the pain on my own so I'm basically outsourcing some of the suffering to the PT, who will have to hear me shout and complain. I also haven’t asked Dr D’s office for the prescription sleep aid yet. I want to try a few things and see if I can fall asleep without taking Valium, Ambien, or even an OTC antihistamine. Given that I had a relatively good night of sleep on my first night back home, I have some hope still. I haven’t given any thought as to where I was going to get my x-ray in two weeks, but I should probably schedule it soon. Knowing how slow some things happen in the medical world I might need to schedule it now to even get it in two weeks.

Finally, it was the end of the day and time to lengthen. I got all my tools and put them next to the yoga mat. I would do some upper body exercise as well since I didn’t want my non-leg muscles to atrophy as well. Of course that means I would need to eat more to maintain everything, but I should be able to pull that off. I worked out and stretched for over 30 minutes, which is a pretty long session for me at home. My legs were tired and in a little bit of pain, but working out made them less stiff and my whole workout was tolerable. Afterwards I lengthened and then got ready to go to bed. Instead of taking Norco before bed, I had something different to try - a chocolate edible. I know these worked pretty well in the past and made me very sleepy, and other lengtheners have given good reviews on it as well so it was worth a shot. After eating it and drinking a bunch of water, I sat in bed and got ready to sleep, though first I checked the forum and posted my backlog of journal entries. Now I’m going to go read something boring while I wait for my sleep aid to kick in. Good night, forum.

Edit Post

Incredible diary.  The details are so helpful to both prospect and current, CLL'ers.  You're doing great, buddy.  Keep fighting the good fight!

All the best,

IFS

Edit Post

Thanks for the details; very helpful and appreciated! Stay strong, brutha 💪

Edit Post

Quote from: InFullStryde on December 17, 2020, 03:39:15 PMIncredible diary.  The details are so helpful to both prospect and current, CLL'ers.  You're doing great, buddy.  Keep fighting the good fight!

All the best,

IFS
Thanks for the support, IFS!

Quote from: L8GrowthSpurt on December 18, 2020, 04:48:36 AMThanks for the details; very helpful and appreciated! Stay strong, brutha
Glad you find it helpful!

Surgery Day +31, Lengthening Day 28 (+1mm, 28.66mm total)

I think I ate the edible too late last night. It took about two hours to kick in, at which point I was pain free, but not really sleepy. After another 30-60 minutes I was finally sleepy enough to fall asleep. I’m not sure if the edible made me sleepy or if it was just really late at night. Next time I definitely need to take it earlier in the night. I remember waking up a few times in the middle of the night, and I was awake enough to check the time once. However, when I looked at my watch data in the morning, I had woken up many times last night so the sleep quality wasn’t that good. Regardless, I had 5.9 hours of sleep out of 7.1 hours in bed, which is tolerable. I actually didn’t wake up until my alarm went off and I was still a little reluctant to get out of bed, and I think I could have gone back to sleep, so those are good signs that things are getting better with sleep.

While I was making breakfast my phone rang with an out of area number. I assumed it was spam and didn’t pick it up. However, I got a voicemail saying it was the local physical therapist that I picked and they left me a local callback number. It was strange, but after eating I called them back to schedule. They had all my information from Dr. D already so they just asked a few basic questions about the procedure, but ultimately were unable to schedule me until Monday, and even then they only had availability while I would be working. That’s fine with me though, no one is going to notice me missing for an hour or two around lunch on a holiday week when half the office is on vacation. Some PT is definitely better than no PT, and the place is a five minute drive from where I live. After that, I called the biggest hospital in my city to schedule an X-ray since I know they are in network with my insurance. They told me that X-rays can be done during a walk-in and if I had my doctor’s orders then I could just bring them when I walked in. I need to get an X-ray the week between Christmas and New Years so hopefully it’s not too busy at the hospital. I won’t be very busy at work, so I plan to go in the middle of the day. I also scheduled my next appointment with Dr. D. During the last visit he had suggested a weekend appointment so I wouldn’t have to take time off work, but he wasn’t available on the weekend closest to my 8-week checkup, so I scheduled a regular weekday appointment. I have tons of vacation time anyway, so I don’t mind taking off a day or two.

I had enough time to lengthen before my first meeting of the day, so I set my exercise area up with all my equipment. I have noticed that it’s getting harder to keep my legs together when they are straight, though I can still do it. Most surprising to me is my hamstrings. I have been stretching them pretty consistently, but I have lost significant flexibility there. Before surgery I could basically touch my toes with my wrist. After surgery I could barely touch my toes, but as I recovered I was able to touch with my second knuckle. So basically I’m assuming I lost about 4 inches of flexibility from the surgery itself that I would be able to recover later. However, at this point with just 28mm in, I can’t even get close to touching my toes with my fingers, I’m maybe 4 inches away. I’ve lost these 4 inches of flexibility over the last week or so, so in total I have lost maybe 8 inches of flexibility in my hamstring stretch, and I’m barely over 1 inch in lengthening. Something seems a bit off, and maybe it’s even related to my APT, but I just need to try and maintain everything until Monday so I can see the new PT and hopefully they can solve all my flexibility problems.

Afterwards I worked until lunchtime. I still wasn’t yet in the mood to cook, and my frozen chicken that I put in the fridge still hadn’t thawed yet, so I microwaved some convenient food and chowed it down. I might order out over the weekend so I have some more variety, but I feel like I need to cook at least once soon so I get in the habit and so I don’t get too lazy. I had a decent amount of work to do for the afternoon, so I planned to grind through all of it and then do my second lengthening of the day. Unfortunately my plan didn’t work because my pain started becoming intolerable by the early afternoon. I had basically been at 1-3/10 pain all day because it was hard to find a comfortable position to stand in. I had an important meeting coming up and just 30 minutes beforehand I had zero focus, so I took a full Norco. I lay in bed and waited for it to kick in. Just before the meeting I started feeling much better, which worked out perfectly. After the meeting I was still feeling no pain so I did a pre-lengthening workout and stretch session and then ran the ERC. Lately I still haven’t been feeling any post-lengthening pains, but I am getting more and more concerned about my hamstrings. It’s definitely getting hard for me to stand with my legs together and I’m not even at 3cm yet. I’ve had APT the whole time as well. I decided that I was going to try and stretch my hamstrings every 1-3 hours going forward as long as I remembered.

I decided to cook dinner since it was still early in the evening and I was quite hungry. I’m surprised the Norco I took didn’t make me lose my appetite, but that’s good because I’d prefer to eat a lot right now, especially if it’s healthy food. Neither standing by the stove for an extended duration nor carrying the giant pan full of food gave me any trouble. I remembered that before the surgery when I was preparing everything at home I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to carry a pan full of food from the stove to the counter. I really had no concept of what I’d be physically capable of at this point, even what I’d be like at all, but I’m way stronger and more capable that I thought I would be one month after surgery. While eating, I remembered that I wanted to finish the Mulan movie since I had watched part of it on the plane, so I put it on TV. Honestly the lengthening life is really not that different from regular quarantine life, the main difference is just that I have to spend a lot of time stretching and managing my pain throughout the day. The rest of the time I am just doing what I would be doing anyway. While I haven’t had the chance to appreciate any height gain yet, I am certainly glad that I’m lengthening at a time when everyone else is stuck at home too. I’m pretty sure the lives of my friends are just as boring as mine right now based on their complaints. I suppose they aren’t in pain like me, but they’re also not growing!

With so much more stuff to do at home than when traveling, the night passed by quickly and it was time to take another sleep aid - the same one as last night. This time I took it over an hour earlier since it took so long to kick in last night. I had over an hour to exercise and do the last lengthening of the day and then I would be in bed and ready to go to sleep early by the time it kicked in. I actually spent about two hours doing stuff and it never kicked in. I proceeded to stretch and do some exercises and the last lengthening. One thing I’ve definitely noticed now is that my legs are swollen again. I think the reason is because I walked around too much on the day I flew back. I think it is impacting how flexible I am, though my hamstring could just be losing flexibility. I also think my IT band is also tight around the knee. Hopefully the swelling goes down soon. I went to bed after lengthening and the edible never kicked in. I just went to sleep normally.

Surgery Day +32, Lengthening Day 29 (+1mm, 29.66mm total)

I woke up many times overnight, and I was very stiff each time so it was hard to fall back asleep. I also had to get up and go to the bathroom twice, and making that quick walk was difficult each time. My sleep data matched what I felt, I got 5.8 hours of sleep out of 8.6 hours in bed, which is a pretty bad ratio. I also woke up 17 times in the night and didn’t get any solid blocks of sleep that lasted more than one hour without waking up. I was sleepy and tired when I got up, but my alarm had gone off so it was time to start the day. I was also in 3/10 pain laying in bed, and I was hoping that the act of getting up would help with that. I could try to take a nap later in the afternoon. I made breakfast quickly, then I had to call into a meeting. Fortunately I wasn’t presenting anything, so I was able to eat while listening in on the call. Afterwards I wanted to get ready for lengthening, but I was very tired still, and my legs were swollen. I had no energy to do PT exercises. I lay down in bed and elevated my legs with pillows. In that position I fell asleep for a bit.

I was awakened by another alert on my work laptop and I got up. I had a little bit of time to lengthen now, so I forced myself to start exercising. Again, I had zero energy or motivation to lengthen and every action was a struggle. I got through my exercises and stretches one at a time. I feel like my hamstring stretch was another 1-2 inches worse than yesterday. It must be related to the swelling because I don’t think I should be randomly losing flexibility. When I finally got through everything I sat down in my lengthening spot on the couch and felt a bit of relief. Lengthening itself wasn’t painful and had no aftereffect. I think my biggest problem these next few days is going to be the swelling, so hopefully there’s a way to get rid of it quickly. I really didn’t expect that my legs would get swollen again. I really should have taken the wheelchair service at the Las Vegas airport earlier in the week. I’m also certain all that walking plus a flight is the reason that my legs are swollen. Fortunately my fridge at home can make ice, so with some ziploc bags and towels I could make some ice packs to use later.

I was still a bit busy with work and I had to eat lunch as well, so I didn’t plan on icing my legs until later in the day. In the afternoon I brought my work laptop to my bed and sat in bed working instead of at my desk. It definitely helped a bit to keep my legs comfortable since they weren’t doing that well in a sitting position with my knees bent (3/10 pain from the swelling/stiffness.) I think if I maintained a sitting position I would probably have to take a Norco sooner or later. I planned on taking half a Norco later to help me get through the middle lengthening of the day though. When I finally signed off work, I went to lay down with my legs elevated for a bit to help with swelling. Unfortunately my legs hurt, so it wasn’t easy to position them. I think I will need to use the help of painkillers to get me through the swelling. I did some more research on swelling and it does seem like flying is a contributing factor as well as working out too hard. However, to reduce swelling I need to drink more water to get fluids moving and improve my circulation. Raising my thighs above my heart level could help as well as icing them and massaging them.

I took half a Norco pill after work (though honestly it might have been better to take it earlier to improve my focus at work.) I browsed the web and ate some snacks while waiting for it to kick in. I gave it 30 minutes and then started my PT exercises and stretching. I selected exercises that would both help my strength and flexibility, and would help improve blood flow and reduce swelling in my legs. My flexibility was still absurdly bad with the hamstrings, but I’ll be more concerned if it stays this bad after the swelling goes down. Afterwards I lengthened both sides and then it was time to make dinner. I did the dishes and watched some TV while waiting for my pan to dry so I could cook on it again. Overall, my legs are okay post-Norco, but I’m still having some trouble sitting in a chair unless my feet are flat on the ground. Standing actually feels better, but if I straighten my legs too hard, it puts some pressure on my IT bands, though that might be good since I think I’d be stretching them.

After cooking and eating dinner, I figured it would be a good chance to ice my legs. Since my freezer hadn’t made enough ice for me to use yet, I decided to take an “ice bath” on my legs. I wasn’t sure how well I would be able to handle an ice bath during the winter, but I really needed to fight back against the excessive swelling. The water felt pretty cold, but I’m pretty sure it was at least 10 degrees above freezing. It was actually harder to keep my legs flush against the bottom of the tub than it was to endure the cold. I stayed in there for 15 minutes and then mixed in some hot water so the tub would be warm at least. Afterwards I elevated my legs above my heart level and played on my phone until I got bored. Of course my legs weren’t elevated the whole time, I still had to move them around to keep them comfortable. After I got out of the tub I ate another edible. I’m fairly certain it’s going to do absolutely nothing because I’m pretty sure the batch I’m eating is expired. I could go shopping for more tomorrow. I sat in bed for a while reading and then later at night it was time to do the last lengthening.

I wasn’t feeling great, but somehow I still had a little more energy than I did in the morning. I did my exercises and stretches half heartedly and then ran the ERC on each leg. I felt no lengthening aftereffect but I did another set of stretches afterwards just to try and push myself a little. Finally it was time to go to bed. Indeed I did not feel anything from the edible even hours later, so I would be going to bed with no painkillers again. Hopefully I manage to get better sleep, and if not at least there’s no reason to wake up early tomorrow.

Surgery Day +33, Lengthening Day 30 (+1mm, 30.66mm total)

I remember waking up many times last night. My sleep data showed 6.2 hours asleep out of 8.1 hours in bed. I woke up a total of 12 times but at least got a block of over 2 hours of consecutive sleep. As bad as it was, it’s still better than the night before. I got up pretty early considering my alarm was set to noon. I think sleeping in during the weekend is impossible anyway when you wake up stiff and in 3/10 pain and completely unable to fall back asleep. I got up and went to the bathroom for my morning routine. I took a Xarelto and Tylenol as my morning pills. Then I ate breakfast to fully wake myself up. At this point I wasn’t really feeling any pain anymore so I started preparing for my first lengthening. Once I got it out of the way I would have lots of other stuff to do today. While exercising I still felt completely out of it, though I managed to push a little harder than last night. I noticed that my swelling had actually gone down a bit since yesterday since I can actually tell where my knee ends and thigh starts whereas yesterday It was all one giant blob. Maybe the cold water bath worked. I could try soaking for 15 minutes in the cold tub again today. As long as it can get rid of my swelling the suffering will be worth it. The swelling makes it extra hard to lengthen because I don’t know if my pain and tightness are from swelling or lengthening.

After finishing my stretches, I ran the ERC on each leg. I just hit the 3cm mark but it doesn’t really feel that special. I didn’t notice anything at an inch and I still don’t notice anything now. At least things are still moving along, and reduced swelling today is a good sign as well. I should certainly hit the 4cm mark before the end of 2020. It looks like half my lengthening will happen in 2020 and half in 2021. I’m not sure when, or if I will need to slow down my lengthening rate, but so far my legs have been okay overall. I can feel like it’s getting harder to keep my legs together when walking, I can also feel that I’m losing some flexibility in my hamstrings, but it hasn’t affected me keeping my legs straight. My quads are the most flexible, and I have no problem bending my knees. I can feel my IT band stretch when I stand super straight and push my knees backward, but I’m hoping that they haven’t fully healed yet and can still be stretched. I hope that any reduced flexibility right now is still due to my thighs being swollen. I am a bit concerned about swelling being caused by flying, so I plan to take the wheelchair service next time even if I can walk better than I did on my first visit to the airport.

Now that I was done lengthening it was time to run some errands. I planned to drive for the first time and I didn’t have any painkillers in me, so I was ready to go out. Driving was no problem, especially since I was going to a lot of places not too far from each other so I could alternate between sitting in the car and walking around. My first stop was the bank since I needed to get some cash. After that I went to the local dispensary. I’m sure they up-sold me since it cost way more than I remember, though it has been years since I last bought any. I asked for a sleep aid and pain relief and got a pack of each to try. If it works I will come back for more. Next, I stopped by a drive through for lunch and then realized I was completely out of gas. Too bad I can’t reach across time and slap my pre-surgery self for leaving a car with an empty fuel tank for my currently crippled self. Fortunately it wasn’t that hard to fill up the car and honestly I feel like I can do most of the things that I need to do by myself. After that I went home with all my goodies.

When I got home, my legs were quite tired from walking around. It wasn’t late enough to start the second lengthening session of the day and I didn’t want to take any pain medication. I changed into indoor clothes and sat on my bed and watched TV for a while. My legs were pretty comfortable and I stretched my hamstrings occasionally. When it was about dark out I started exercising and did my second lengthening of the day. I have noticed that I’m at my strongest around the time of the second lengthening of the day. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s easier to do reps and stretch at this point in the day. I’m weaker in the morning and right before going to bed. Nothing too special about this lengthening session. Afterwards I sat in bed and watched some more TV and then when I started getting hungry I went to the kitchen to make dinner.

After dinner it was time for my ice bath. I plan to keep taking them until my thighs are no longer swollen. I plan to record a stair climbing video for you guys as well once my legs are not swollen anymore. I just really dislike the fat thighs look. Fifteen minutes in the cold water was easier today than yesterday and I think the water was actually a bit colder. Maybe my body is already adapting to this, heh. Again, after the cold water part I filled the tub up to warm water and then elevated my legs and played with my phone while soaking for a bit. When I was about to get out of the tub I took one of the sleeping edibles that I bought today. It said it could take up to 2-4 hours to take effect so I figured I would need to take it early for it to kick in when I needed to sleep. I planned to workout and do the last lengthening about an hour or so after eating the edible. If I was lucky then the painkiller effect would have kicked in but not the sleepiness. I dried off and went back to my bedroom to relax for a bit.

The time came quickly for me to do the last lengthening of the day. I started doing my PT exercises and I’m pretty sure in the middle of them my edible kicked in (much earlier than expected.) I went from struggling to sit down onto the yoga mat to having more than enough energy to do all the exercises and stretches. After I finished lengthening, I drank a bunch of water and then went straight to bed.

Surgery Day +34, Lengthening Day 31 (+1mm, 31.66mm total)

I think I took the edible too early last night. I did fall asleep fairly quickly, but I usually don’t have trouble falling asleep. I have the most trouble staying asleep for a longer duration. My sleep data showed 5.6 hours asleep out of 8.1 hours in bed, waking up 16 times and no single block of sleep over 2 hours without waking up. The worst period was between 5am and 6am, where I was awake for much longer than I was asleep. I remember not being able to sleep during this period last night as well and thinking that I might have to get up and start my day early. I’m not sure what else I can do for sleep at this point, other than to just sleep normally and then take something if and when I wake up in the middle of the night. I’m quite envious of the lengtheners who are getting 7-8 hours of actual sleep, or at least are able to sleep for long blocks of time. I’m sure they are more effective and focused when working than I am. I got up, went to the bathroom and started my day.

The first thing to do was to take my pills of course. I’ve been taking a Tylenol in the morning with my Xarelto, but I’m not sure I feel anything at all from acetaminophen anymore. Maybe the type of pain I’m experiencing isn’t really impacted by acetaminophen or maybe I’m too used to it and it has no effect on me. Regardless, I think it still has some sort of placebo effect because I’m not sure if I feel better or not after taking it. I made breakfast and ate it while watching some internet videos. I definitely feel very low energy today. Working out did not help at all. I did manage to finish a full set of exercises and stretches before my first lengthening though. Afterwards I sat down on the bed for a while and played with my laptop and phone. I really didn’t have the energy to go anywhere, do anything, or even think about anything. I’m glad I went outside yesterday when I actually had some energy because I don’t think I’d be able to today.

The morning passed by quickly and I made lunch and ate it. I decided to try and get some work done ahead of time to reduce my stress during the upcoming work week. Although I didn’t think I could focus I figured I could at least test my capability of focusing, and possibly take a painkiller to address it. Like I’ve said before, the distraction phase is all about finding painkillers that work for you. When I’m in 0/10 pain and focused, I can see how people say they can easily work during the distraction phase. When I’m at a baseline pain level of more than 0 and I can’t focus well, I can also understand all the people who took a break from work for the entire lengthening period. I think I’m somewhere in the middle. My job is flexible enough that I have been able to get away with it so far, but if I kept this level of job performance for an extended period it would definitely not look good on me.

I was actually able to focus for a little bit and get work done without any painkillers. I sat on the couch with my work laptop on my legs. I don’t think I could have done any work on my desk though since my legs are still pretty sensitive in certain sitting positions. After about half an hour I started feeling a bit uncomfortable in my legs, so I took half a Norco and then my focus went to 100%. It kicked in about 30 minutes later and I was feeling no pain in my legs, but amusingly I started noticing little things that I don’t feel when I’m in pain, like my incision sites and some of the skin near my knees itching. Anyway, I took a 20 minute break from work to exercise and lengthen, where I was full of energy and got through all my exercises and stretches enthusiastically. I guess painkillers still make a huge difference. Aside from my lengthening break I completed nearly 3 hours of uninterrupted work and cleared out much of my inbox. I should be able to slack off a bit next week if nothing urgent comes up

Next it was time to make dinner. As soon as I got up from the couch, I realized that the Norco had pretty much worn off already. However, I wasn’t really in that much pain, just back to my uncomfortable baseline. I cleaned the dishes by hand and then waited a little bit for them to dry. Once the cutting board dried I started preparing my meal. I think cooking during the lengthening phase is both good exercise and uplifting to the spirit. When you’re in pain, stiff, and uncomfortable most of each day, every happy distraction is welcome. Once dinner was ready I sat down in front of the TV to watch while I ate. It’s times like this that make me feel like having broken legs during LL is not that different than usual, but each time I wake up in the middle of the night I am reminded how different going through LL is than just being holed up in the middle of the pandemic. Of course, from the outside no one knows. My friends all think I’m going through the same things that they are, but I’m really taking biding my time during the pandemic to another level.

After finishing dinner and a couple of TV episodes it was getting a bit late so I decided not to take an ice bath today. While my swelling has definitely gone down a bit in the last two days, if I had more time tonight I would have taken another ice bath. I’m not sure if I can attribute all of the improvement to the ice baths, but I’m sure it’s helping, along with elevating my legs and massaging them in the direction of my body. I haven’t really noticed an improvement in my hamstring stretch though as my swelling has gone down, so I’ll definitely bring that up with the PT when I finally get a chance to go tomorrow. One other problem I have on flexibility is that my left leg can no longer do the butterfly stretch. It just starts hurting when I try - not even when I stretch too far but as soon as I stretch a tiny bit I get a burning feeling. I’ve been doing this stretch on my own as no PT has told me to do it so I don’t know if it’s even necessary, but it’s still a little concerning to suddenly not be able to do the stretch since it's technically a thigh stretch. I guess most lengtheners are more concerned about not being able to keep their legs together as opposed to worry about not being able to separate them. I also started doing a new IT band stretch in the last few days. I feel the stretch the most around the butt area, but it has actually greatly improved my ability to stand straight without feeling any pressure from the IT band around my knee area. I guess the whole body is interconnected so something that might not seem helpful can actually be helpful. Hopefully I find something similar that helps my hamstrings.

I decided to do my last lengthening session of the day just to get it over with so I could go to bed and rest even if I didn't fall asleep right away. Since I had already been stretching while I was watching TV I didn’t have to work out too hard before lengthening. My energy level was actually okay considering I hadn’t taken any painkillers. After lengthening I took another one of those sleep aid edibles. I brushed my teeth, drank some water, and went straight to bed without waiting for it to kick in. Hopefully I can fall asleep quickly and have the effects of the edible help me stay asleep for a few hours.

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Great Journal entries as usual. I can’t imagine flying in my current state. I noticed the same thing with my hamstring and butterfly stretch recently. I’m right around where you were at the 1 inch mark. It hopefully won’t regress much further. Hang in there. Almost halfway done!

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BTM - dude you’re like 1/2 way through distraction, right? How goes the battle? Stay strong, you got this. 💪

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Quote from: Froggy on December 21, 2020, 08:07:42 PMGreat Journal entries as usual. I can’t imagine flying in my current state. I noticed the same thing with my hamstring and butterfly stretch recently. I’m right around where you were at the 1 inch mark. It hopefully won’t regress much further. Hang in there. Almost halfway done!
It's good to know that someone is in the exact same stage as me - makes me feel less alone doing this! How are you doing now?

Quote from: L8GrowthSpurt on December 23, 2020, 04:58:14 AMBTM - dude you’re like 1/2 way through distraction, right? How goes the battle? Stay strong, you got this.
Not quite halfway yet, but I will be before the end of the year. Thanks for the encouragement!

Surgery Day +35, Lengthening Day 32 (+1mm, 32.66mm total)

Another morning, another sleep report. I got about 5.5 hours of sleep out of 7.4 hours in bed. I woke up 14 times in the middle of the night but almost got a 2 hour solid block of sleep. I was super tired, but I got up and took my medicine including a Tylenol. My legs were actually in 3/10 pain walking around in the morning (which is a good bit worse than usual.) I sat back down in bed and got out my laptop. As I was using it, I dozed off. I woke up 20 minutes later and rearranged everything so I was in a laying down position and I took a one hour nap. After that I felt a bit better rested. It wasn’t that early in the morning anymore but at least I was more refreshed. I got up again and went to make breakfast and start my first lengthening of the day. I wanted some rest between lengthening and PT so I wouldn’t feel any aftereffects from lengthening while I was at PT.

While exercising and stretching I noticed that my energy level was pretty low, but I was able to get through my full routine. I lengthened (with no aftereffect) and then worked for a little bit. Shortly after that it was time to go to my new PT clinic. I took a Norco and quickly headed over. I showed up 20 minutes early to get my paperwork, insurance, and payment set up. When everything was ready, I went into the facility and met with the PT who I would be working with. She seemed very nice and asked me a bunch of questions about the procedure. She also tested my strength and flexibility in a bunch of different positions. Finally we spent some time doing PT exercises which were similar to the ones I’ve done before. She also used a massage roller on the outside of my thighs, which I thought would hurt since it was over my incisions and femur screws, but it was actually okay and helped loosen up my IT band a bit. Before leaving I scheduled PT sessions all the way out until the end of next month. I actually feel a lot better having a physical therapist that I can talk to, since it feels like I have someone supporting me through the lengthening phase. In the 6 days that I didn’t have any PT, I was just stretching by myself at home and it definitely felt a lot more like I was doing this all alone.

The PT center is in a strip mall so there are a ton of food options nearby. I grabbed some food to go before heading home. When I got home, I sat at my desk and worked for a while without feeling uncomfortable in my legs. Doing PT helps my legs feel more comfortable for a while even after the session, though I suppose the Norco I took before PT was probably doing its job as well. I continued to work for the remainder of the afternoon, though I took a lot of breaks so I would be moving around and not just sitting in one place the whole time. The afternoon wasn’t too busy and after I signed off work I started doing more PT exercises to get ready for the second lengthening session of the day. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure how much my PT actually knows about the procedure. I should probably bring it up to her tomorrow to see exactly what Dr. D’s office told the PT clinic. I want to be sure that she knows that I’m still lengthening and that I will get less and less flexible. She might think that I’m already done lengthening and am just trying to recover, which would probably result in a different treatment. After my exercises and stretches, I ran the ERC on each leg, again with no aftereffect. I’m starting to think that I’m in that middle phase where lengthening isn’t too bad and I don’t really have any surgical pains anymore. Hopefully it stays this way for a while.

After lengthening I wasn’t hungry enough to eat a big dinner yet, so I decided it would be a good time to take that ice bath that I missed out on yesterday. I actually brought a thermometer into the bathroom this time to see what temperature the water was at. It’s a cooking thermometer so I don’t know how well it reads low temperatures, but the water coming out of the faucet was 7C (45F) but it was warming up once it came out of the faucet due to ambient temperature, body heat, etc. After five minutes the equilibrium temperature of the bath water was 15C (59F) so that’s probably why it gets pretty easy for me to tolerate. I’m not sure I could keep it colder unless I actually dumped ice cubes into the bath, but for the purposes of reducing swelling in my thighs I think a 15 minute soak at this temperature is fine.

After the cold bath and a lukewarm shower I was still not hungry. I took a Norco earlier today, so maybe that affected my appetite, but I’m really just not that hungry overall, especially given how many extra calories I’m supposed to eat every day. I’m sure I’m losing weight as we speak, but it’s really hard to be motivated to eat when you’re not hungry, let alone cook, eat, and do dishes as well. For future lengtheners I would definitely plan to eat out more or have someone cook for you if you want to try and maintain a high caloric intake. At this point my legs were actually in 3/10 pain. I’m not sure what caused it, but it was there. I tried sitting down in bed with my laptop and distracting myself, but it didn’t reduce the pain at all. I kept changing positions with my legs, and eventually, after maybe 20 minutes or so, the pain finally went away. I wonder if it’s like this in the middle of the night when I wake up - 20 minutes of pain keeping me awake and then falling back asleep when it goes away. I’m usually too tired and sleepy to be able to tell what the problem is when I wake up in the middle of the night since I’m just focused on trying to fall back asleep.

Finally it was getting kind of late, so if I didn’t cook dinner now I would end up not eating dinner or just eating snacks. Sure, my brain isn’t hungry, but I need that protein and other nutrients to fuel my body’s bone regeneration. I cooked a meal and ate it quickly and then started getting ready for the last lengthening. I ate an edible sleep aid as well since I figured it would kick in shortly after running the ERC. Of course nothing went to plan. Halfway through my exercises, the edible kicked in and I lost all motivation to finish them. I half heartedly did a couple more stretches and then ran the ERC on each leg. Fortunately I had no uncomfortable aftereffect, otherwise I don’t know if I would have had the energy to try and do more stretches to counteract it. At this point I was super ready to go to sleep and quickly got ready to do so. I collapsed into bed and immediately passed out.

Surgery Day +36, Lengthening Day 33 (+1mm, 33.66mm total)

For the past six nights I still haven’t managed to get a good night's sleep. I’m sure it’s affecting me negatively, but I’m not sure how much I can do about it. I got 5.8 hours of sleep out of 7.4 hours in bed waking up 13 times with no single block of sleep over 90 minutes. When I got up I struggled to walk to the bathroom. My legs were in 3-4/10 pain just from standing and walking. The pain didn’t go away for the 10 minutes or so while I was doing my morning routine. I took my morning pills of Tylenol and Xarelto and sat back down in bed dressed up. I waited a while for the Tylenol to kick in and hopefully return me to a baseline pain level of 0/10. I don’t think I was as sleepy as the previous morning where I was able to take a nap shortly after getting up. Fortunately the Tylenol worked after a bit and I wasn’t in pain even when just sitting in the bed and not moving.

My stomach was growling at this point and I went to make breakfast. I should probably try to somehow better distribute my calories across the day since I was too full to finish my meal last night, yet very hungry first thing in the morning today. After breakfast I felt a bit better in my legs, but I had some stuff to do for work. I got it done as quickly as possible so I could start my first lengthening session of the day. I was definitely feeling low energy at this point, but I did a couple of exercises and then lengthened. Afterwards, I finished the rest of my exercises and stretches slowly. I think the sensitivity of my left leg to butterfly stretches is getting worse. Although I haven’t done any butterfly stretches recently, there are a lot of ways for my leg to accidentally stretch in that way whether I’m sitting or laying down and the pain is no good. It is a very different kind of pain than anything else I’ve experienced since surgery.

After my exercises I lay down on the couch briefly while working off of my phone. Before I knew it I had dozed off. I slept on and off until almost noon. I felt much better when I got up and I decided to make lunch, but my legs were still stiff, and in a bit of pain walking around. I tried to eat my lunch over the countertop in the kitchen but halfway through the meal my legs got too tired and I had to take a break and sit on the couch for a few minutes. The last few days haven’t been all that great in terms of lengthening, today included. I got up and finished my meal, and then worked for a little bit. It was almost time to go to PT so I popped a Norco and changed into my gym clothes. By the time I got everything ready it was time to head out, so I got into my car and drove over to PT. As usual, I didn’t feel anything from the Norco until after PT started, and based on how they’re pushing me, I definitely think I need it.

The PT facility was pretty empty when I got there. I suppose early afternoon on a weekday isn’t exactly primetime. I got on the stationary bike to warm up, and it’s pretty trivial for me to pedal compared to the first first few weeks out of surgery. At resistance level 3 I rode 1.19 miles in 10 minutes. It’s sad to think that I used to be able to run faster than that. Then I got on one of the tables and started doing PT exercises. There was a different PT today who was training me. I’m still not sure if this PT knew exactly what my surgical procedure was, but he definitely seemed to know that I have metal rods in my legs attached by screws. He also used the foam roller on the outside of my thighs, which was slightly painful but helped loosen up the IT band. We did the same exercises as I did with the other PT yesterday, and a couple of new ones which were kind of tough. He then did some range of motion tests and helped me stretch my hamstrings, then used the foam roller on my hamstrings as well. Overall I would say I came out of PT feeling much better than I did going in. I’m sure part of it is the exercise I’m getting and part of it may just be the timing of when I take Norco. I suppose it’s possible for someone to lengthen at home doing all the necessary exercises and stretches, but for me it definitely helps to have an outside party assisting with this even if it costs money.

This PT facility has a lot of mirrors and two of the exercises I did toward the end were standing exercises, so I got a good look at my current proportions. From about 15 feet away I couldn’t really tell if my legs were any longer yet, which is not surprising at only 3cm lengthened. My upper body is still in pretty good shape, and I think I look better overall than before, with a longer thinner look from waist down. I’m not sure how the other 5cm will affect my look, but at 3cm I can definitely say my proportions are more pleasing to the eye than before. When I got home I was still thinking about my height gained and I took a look at my starting mark on the wall. My current eye level is about two inches below that mark. Therefore, if I can hit 8cm then my new eye level will be approximately where the top of my head started out at. If that’s not a big perspective change, then I don’t know what is. Before lengthening I would be basically eye-to-eye with a 5’6” girl in flats. Going from that to looking at the top of her head is a huge difference. If she wears heels we’d be the same height instead of me being shorter. I think I’m finally starting to see and feel some solid evidence that I’m growing, but again it’s not to the point where I can confidently say that CLL is worth it yet.

I ate some snacks and then decided to lengthen right after I got back from PT since I was already fully warmed up. I did some minor stretches while waiting for the ERC to power on and then ran it on each leg once it was ready. I felt no lengthening aftereffect and I didn’t expect to feel anything because my legs were doing great. After that I worked for a couple of hours in the afternoon with no problems since my legs were doing good. After I signed off work, I sat on the couch and played games for a while - probably too long since my butt got a little numb from sitting in one position. I had to recharge my phone and laptop, so I did some stretching in the meantime. As before, I’m really not that hungry in the early evening, but I don’t want to wait until too late to eat because it throws off my schedule. I decided to cook something and I could relax and watch some TV at night and do some casual stretching. I guess I would be skipping the ice bath today. I don’t think my thigh swelling has fully gone away, but it’s not so bad now that it’s making my legs feel significantly worse.

I decided to try the high CBD content edible tonight. Who knows, maybe it would help me sleep better than the other one. I wasn’t planning to let it get in the way of my PT exercises though, so I made sure to warm up first and get ready to lengthen before ingesting anything. Since I had been stretching while watching TV I was already feeling good before starting my PT exercises. Once I was fully warmed up, I ran the ERC on each leg with no aftereffects. The ERC reminded me to charge it again, so it looks like you can get about 2-3 weeks of use out of each charge. Finally it was time to go to bed. I went to the restroom to do my nighttime routine and then hopped into bed before the edible kicked in. Fingers crossed for getting a better night of sleep! Lack of sleep definitely impacts how I feel and I actually think the last week in Vegas felt like it passed by quicker than this first full week that I’ve been home. Just need to hold out for one more week and I’ll be at the halfway point. It certainly hasn’t been easy and the pain that I feel tests my resolve every day, but I’m still holding on for that greater payoff in the near future.

Surgery Day +37, Lengthening Day 34 (+1mm, 34.66mm total)

The edible kicked in last night before I fell asleep. Since I was already laying down and sleepy I didn’t really notice it. It looks like I fell asleep about 30 minutes after laying down. I slept for 5.8 hours out of 7.8 hours in bed, waking up 12 times. Two of the times I woke up were for over 30 minutes each. I remember waking up both times and not being able to fall back asleep. When I got up in the morning it was quite early, but I was ready to get out of bed since I didn’t think I’d be able to fall back asleep. Based on the last two days I could probably take a nap later in the morning if I got tired. I got up to do my morning routine, then took a Tylenol and Xarelto. I sat back down on my bed because my legs were hurting a bit. I would say again I woke up with 3/10 pain in my thighs, which is exacerbated by walking around. Hopefully the Tylenol could help a bit but in the meantime I didn’t want to put any extra pressure on my legs.

I eventually got a little sleepy, but I hadn’t eaten breakfast so I didn’t want to take a nap. I got up to make and eat breakfast and then I started doing some work. Before I knew it half the morning had passed by. I had to lengthen soon otherwise it might interfere with PT, which I had around lunchtime today. Since I had PT I didn’t want to push myself too hard for the hour or two beforehand, so I half heartedly did my exercises and stretches, then ran the ERC. Fortunately I didn’t feel a lengthening aftereffect, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did given how poorly I’ve been stretching lately. I continued to work for a bit and then headed to PT a bit early. I didn’t want to be late again so I gave myself some extra driving time.

I’m starting to get used to PT here and I did 10 minutes on the stationary bike as a warmup. I pushed myself very hard today, averaging over 100rpm on the bike at resistance level 2. I went 1.53 miles in 10 minutes according to the bike, which is still not as fast as my top running speed, but getting pretty close. Even the PT commented that I was going very fast on the bike. I actually managed to push my heart rate up to almost 160 during the bike ride, so I think this is actually the first time that I’ve really done any cardio since the surgery. I don’t believe I’ve gone over 130 bpm with any exercise before, and that’s with a post-surgery RHR of 90 or so. (My RHR back when I was doing distance running was around 54.) After the bike ride, I had to do a bunch of standing exercises, the most painful of which was a calf stretch. Apparently on the back of my leg it’s not just the hamstring that is excessively tight, my calf is very tight as well. This would explain why my sit and reach is so bad - in fact maybe my back is tight too. I’m still not 100% sure how lengthening my femur has made all these other muscle groups tighter by so much more than what I’ve lengthened so far. After the standing exercises, I lay on a table and did a set of PT exercises lying down. Afterwards the PT worked on my range of motion (including my hip adductor) and then rolled my IT band again.

After PT I got some takeout at one of the nearby food joints and then headed home. It was around this point that I realized that I had completely forgotten to take Norco before heading to PT. I wasn’t in pain at any point up until now, but as soon as I realized I didn’t have any Norco in me, I felt like I was in a bit of pain with every step I took. That goes to show that there’s certainly a psychological aspect with the pain. I got home and ate my lunch, then worked for a bit, though I think I was quite distracted because my legs legitimately were in a bit of pain for a while. About two hours after I got home I decided to take a Norco for some relief, and also because I would be doing the midday lengthening session soon, and I should be able to exercise better with the Norco in me. I sat down in bed with my work laptop and continued to work for a bit. Of course, I got a bit sleepy after a while since I hadn’t taken a nap yet. I didn’t want to sleep right before lengthening and get stiff, so I tried to stay awake. However, I still dozed off for a few minutes. Fortunately a coworker messaged me and woke me up. By this point my legs were feeling great again. As much as I try to avoid taking Norco, it really does work wonders on me. Maybe part of the reason it still works so well is because I’ve been limiting my intake so my body doesn’t really have a chance to build any tolerance to it.

I got out of bed and started doing more PT exercises. My life is currently centered around PT exercises and stretching for sure. Everything else is just a distraction to get time to pass by until the next lengthening session. Since the painkiller was working well, I pushed myself a bit harder on stretches. I didn’t increase the number of reps or duration for any exercise though. After that I ran the ERC on both legs with minimal aftereffect. I will say I am starting to feel a little uncomfortable on my left shin after lengthening, but it’s not numbness or a shocking pain, so it probably isn’t an issue with my nerves, but it could be an early sign of nerve issues so probably something I should check with Dr. D’s team. After the lengthening session I worked for a bit to wrap things up for the day. After that I decided to relax for a bit and played some games on my phone, but I didn’t get very far when a bunch of friends randomly messaged me (independently.) I spent the rest of the evening just chatting with people. I probably spend too much time isolated right now and having some social interaction outside of talking to coworkers is pretty nice.

It was getting pretty late and I hadn’t done anything in the evening except drain my phone battery. I quickly started making dinner - something simple and quick. I also thought through which exercises and stretches I needed to do before my last lengthening. I ate my light dinner quickly, then took an edible as a sleep aid, and finally started doing my pre-lengthening exercises. I got through everything fairly quickly since I did one less set of each exercise, but I did each stretch for its full duration. I ran the ERC on each leg afterwards and there were no issues post-lengthening, except for my left shin still. I wonder how often nerve pain comes only in one leg, would I have to slow down both legs if only one was in pain? I’m thinking yes, but it would be interesting to finish on one leg first while the other one slowly catches up. You could start consolidation on the finished leg and it would be comfortable and able to support you while the other leg was still recovering. Anyway, I had nothing else to do for the night, so I went to bed. It wasn’t that late yet, and nothing had kicked in, so I didn’t fall asleep right away. I pulled my laptop out and browsed the web for a bit. The edible kicked in and I slid down into a sleeping position and passed out.

Surgery Day +38, Lengthening Day 35 (+0.66mm, 35.32mm total)

When I woke up I figured I got decent sleep since I only remembered waking up once last night to go to the bathroom. However, my sleep data only showed 5.2 hours of sleep out of 6.9 hours in bed and waking up 11 times, which is not so great. I got up and did my morning routine, then ate my pills and breakfast. Overall I would say I was in 2/10 pain walking around first thing in the morning, so a tiny bit better than the last few days, but it’s still not great to be in pain while walking around right after getting out of bed. I signed onto my work computer and started working for a bit, planning to take a break for lengthening sometime in the morning. After about an hour I felt like I was not in pain anymore, so I figured it would be a good time to lengthen. The sun was also fully up and it seemed to be a nice sunny day (even though it was very cold outside) which boosted my mood a bit. I ran through the full set of exercises and stretches and then lengthened with the ERC. I didn’t feel too uncomfortable in my left shin this morning, so hopefully I’m still staying ahead of any flexibility issues at 1mm/day.

After that I continued to work until it was time for PT. Since it was an early afternoon PT session I skipped lunch and had some snacks instead. I figured that I could just get some takeout nearby after PT. This time I remembered to take my Norco before PT. Since I know the PT is going to push me (as they have every other day this week) it’s probably still better to go in with Norco. When I got to PT I started with 10 minutes on the bike. I went back up to resistance level 3 and I definitely didn’t have as much energy as yesterday, so I only rode for 1.21 miles in 10 minutes, and generated less wattage than yesterday. Afterwards, I did some standing stretches and exercises, and some laying on the table. The PT manually stretched out my hamstrings and hip afterwards, and then rolled my IT band. I also found out that my copay for this PT facility is actually cheaper than what I had to pay in Las Vegas (though only by 10%.) Since I will be going to quite a bit of PT here, the savings will still add up I suppose.

After PT I got some food nearby and then headed home. When I got back, I ate quickly while standing around (didn’t want to rest yet) and then did a lengthening session since I was still warmed up. I felt okay immediately afterwards, but after a while my left shin started hurting again. I don’t think what I’m feeling is nerve damage, but since it has been recurring I messaged Dr. D’s team with a description of my issue. Dr. D said I could reduce lengthening to 0.66mm/day for five days to see how my body reacts to that. I suppose I’m okay with slowing down this early in the distraction phase if it’s temporary. Five days of reduced lengthening is 1.7 extra days of distraction added on at the end. I’ll still pass the halfway mark before the new year and with a reduced number of PT sessions over the holidays a corresponding break with lengthening is okay with me as well. However, since I had already lengthened twice early in the day today, I figured I would start at the reduced speed tomorrow.

I was already off work and the sun was setting at 4pm so it was dark and dreary out even though it didn’t feel that late. I considered taking a nap, but I still had a bunch of stuff I needed to get done so I kept myself busy for a while. I wasn’t hungry at dinner time since I had stuffed myself with a late lunch, so I didn’t eat again until pretty late. I took a bath in the early evening, though not an ice bath as my thighs were not that swollen anymore. I took a hot bath instead, though unfortunately it didn’t really help that much with pain. I couldn’t stay in the bath for too long since my legs were uncomfortable, and after getting out of the tub my legs were in 3/10 pain while walking around and feeling both tight and stiff. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to skip the last lengthening session of the day, or finish at 1mm today and reduce my lengthening speed tomorrow. On one hand my leg pain definitely pointed to giving myself some rest today, but on the other hand my second lengthening session was early enough in the day that I would have over 8 hours of rest before the last session.

The decision was made for me when I was lounging around in bed around 10pm and simply fell asleep. It would have been good to do an extra exercise and stretch session even if I didn’t do an extra lengthening, but I can’t do any of that if I’m asleep. Sleep is very important as well during lengthening since it’s hard to come by. This is actually the first time I’ve fallen asleep without preemptively taking a painkiller in weeks. I woke up quite a few times but managed to stay partially asleep until about 2:30am. I got up to use the bathroom and just walking around I was in 4/10 pain. I took a Norco and then sat in bed watching YouTube videos and trying to find a comfortable position while waiting for it to kick in. Once it did, I felt pretty good, but I wasn’t sleepy at all anymore. However, I figured if I didn’t fall asleep before it wore off I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep at all, so I turned off all the lights and lay there, and eventually I fell asleep again.

Surgery Day +39, Lengthening Day 36 (+0.66mm, 35.98mm total)

Apparently my sleep wasn’t too great after taking the Norco. I remember staying asleep for a solid hour or so and then waking up to realize that the painkiller had worn off. I struggled to sleep for a while, but then it looks like I got two solid chunks of sleep in and didn’t get up again until dawn. In total my sleep data shows 6.1 hours of sleep out of 8.9 hours in bed. However, if you don’t count the 90 or so minutes I was awake watching YouTube in the middle of the night, then the ratio looks a bit better. When I got up I didn’t get out of bed right away. I sat up and replied to messages on my phone since I had a ton of them. By the time I got up to start my morning routine, my legs were at 0-1/10 pain, which is much better than any of the previous mornings this week. I only had a protein bar for breakfast since I planned to eat a huge lunch.

Next I thought about lengthening in general. Slowing down my lengthening speed, while a little sad for a few reasons including having to spend more time in the distraction phase and seeing my progress slow down as well, I think overall it’s still going to be beneficial for me. I get to test how my body reacts to slowing down to see how good of a tool it will be later on. I can also lengthen once in the morning and once in the evening without having to try and fit one in mid-day, which is usually the hardest one to do. I think ultimately slow and steady wins this race, and I went into this fully prepared to slow down and add more time to the distraction phase. Between my left shin and the inside of my left thigh I think there’s definitely some tightness/pain that could use a little bit of rest. I will continue to stretch at least as much as I did when I was lengthening at full speed though. After a few days I will return to normal lengthening speed and hopefully by then my flexibility will have caught up a bit to my current length.

As long as there is no risk of premature consolidation, the biggest drawback from slowing down is just spending more time in the distraction phase (the loss of time itself is not so bad compared to the extra suffering experienced during that time.) However, I wonder if in the long term it really makes a difference or not. If I spend an extra 10 days lengthening will it take 10 more days to recover my walking gait? I don’t think so because either way the soft tissue has had the same amount of time to grow. It might not even slow down bone consolidation since the bone is constantly growing even while lengthening. Anyway, I’m probably just trying to internally justify slowing down or psychologically convince myself that it is good. We’ll find out in a few days how helpful it is, and I certainly do hope it makes things easier for a while.

It was late in the morning and I actually had to do the lengthening session. While I wasn’t in pain, I was still relatively low energy today. I have been relying on PT for energy boosts, but I can’t expect PT to be open on a holiday so I would have to motivate myself to do the exercises and stretches. I did an extra long workout session (over 30 minutes of actually working out) and then I was ready to do the first lengthening of the day, after a long break from yesterday’s last session. Running the ERC was no problem and I didn’t really feel any aftereffects. That’s a good sign, and I’m definitely continuing to look out for any issues with my shin or inner thigh. I had a lot of stuff to do after lengthening, and everything I do takes longer than normal. For example, taking out the garbage and recyclables would have taken one trip with working legs, but in my current state it takes three trips. I stayed busy until lunchtime, at which point I ate a ton. After that I continued to go through my to do list.

I did another stretching session for over 30 minutes in the late afternoon, even though I wasn’t going to lengthen. I think I need every stretch I can get, even at the reduced lengthening rate. Although it isn’t easy to motivate myself to do anything, let alone painful stretches, I know I have to continue with it. I can feel that the second half of the distraction phase is actually going to be harder than the first half so while I’m not really looking forward to it. However, I am very much looking forward to being completely done with this so I need to use that as motivation to keep driving myself forward. Unfortunately after my stretching session my legs were in about 3/10 pain when I was walking around inside so I took a Norco. I figured once it kicked in I could stretch some more. I didn’t have too much energy though, and I also didn’t feel the Norco kick in as hard as last night. I’m always fearful of building up a tolerance so I try to save my Norco for a rainy day. I ended up only doing a few light stretches after resting for a bit.

I decided to take a bath to heat up my legs and body as I felt like all my extremities were a bit cold. (Nothing to do with lengthening, just a cold day.) I can still only barely lift my legs high enough to get into the tub, so I consider it a risky maneuver, but I have a chair right next to the tub that I’ve been using for support. It’s also a great place to put my phone when I’m not using it. Anyway, in the tub I noticed that my butt was even flatter than before (due to both muscle and fat loss) and it’s getting harder for me to sit down on a hard surface. I’ve also been doing my exercises/stretches on the couch and in bed instead of on the ground on my yoga mat because it’s just too painful whenever I roll over my tailbone. Because of this, I ordered a full body bath pillow online. Once it gets here I will let everyone know how useful it is. I feel like being able to lay down comfortably in the bath where your legs feel very light due to buoyancy should be very good for pain. Since I can’t sit or lay down too comfortably in the bathtub I have to soak in weird positions which makes it harder for my legs to stay comfortable as well. As I got out of the tub I noticed that my toenails were quite long since I hadn’t clipped them since before my surgery. At first I wasn’t sure if I would be flexible enough to do it myself, but I sat on my chair next to the bathtub and put my feet on the side of the tub and it was very easy to reach.

Normally at this point in the day I should have been getting hungry, but the Norco I took earlier was probably suppressing my hunger. I did eat a big lunch earlier, but that’s still only one meal. If I didn’t get hungry before bedtime, I would have to try and eat something before going to sleep. Although yesterday I somehow managed to fall asleep without taking a preemptive sleep aid, I wasn’t planning to let sleep come naturally tonight. I spent most of the evening talking with family, and before I knew it, it was well past 9pm and I realized that I still had zero hunger, so I prepared a meal purely for the sake of nutrition intake. I’m sure the Norco had already worn off by this point so I’m not sure why my appetite was still so bad. I was not in pain walking around though, so maybe it’s still lingering in my bloodstream. One thing I’ve started trying to do (when I remember) is to march instead of walk. I think deliberately exaggerating a proper walking gait might do more to stretch and train the correct muscles for walking than limping around with my cane and walking in the way that is currently the most comfortable for me. While I was eating I thought about other things that I could do to increase the amount of stretching I was doing, but all I could think of is that I need to somehow get a lot more motivation.

After dinner, I ate an edible and then raced against the clock to finish my workout and second lengthening before it kicked in. I did a fairly long workout, but even so I didn’t expect the edible to kick in so quickly. I suddenly felt it right when I was about to start running the ERC. Fortunately I had already finished exercising because it hit me pretty hard. I was barely able to operate the ERC correctly, and after I finished lengthening I drank some water and then immediately went to bed and passed out.

Surgery Day +40, Lengthening Day 37 (+0.66mm, 36.64mm total)

I really don’t like the way the Apple Watch sends sleep data to the phone. If you wake up earlier than your alarm and turn off the alarm, it doesn’t seem to detect that you woke up half the time and then deletes your sleep tracking data, which is just terrible. I have no sleep data from last night, but based on what I remember waking up in the middle of the night and how tired I was this morning I don’t think my sleep was any different than any of the past nights this week. I was not sure if I would be able to take a nap at some point during the day, but that would probably be beneficial for me. I got up to use the restroom, with 3/10 pain in my legs walking over, though the process of walking was still okay for me. I took my morning medication and then grabbed a protein bar and hopped back into bed to eat it. I played on my phone and laptop for a bit before deciding to get up and start the first lengthening session of the day. I was at 0/10 pain when not moving so I wasn’t planning to take any additional painkillers. I might stop taking Tylenol first thing in the morning because it doesn’t seem to actually do anything for me.

For my first round of PT exercises in the morning my energy level was medium, but my motivation was super low. I just couldn’t seem to force myself to do anything. I half heartedly did my stretches, and even fell asleep for 10 minutes in the middle of stretching. I finally finished my stretches and ran the ERC. After that I did some extra stretches of my hamstrings and quads. Of course, things just can’t go without a hitch so after stretching my left quad I had some knee pain, so I had to stop. I kept myself busy for a little while longer and then it was time to eat lunch. I ate a ton for lunch, and after lunch I was feeling okay (left knee pain gone) so I decided to record a video for the journal. Here it is:



I’m still a little bit swollen in the thighs right now so that’s my excuse for my legs looking fat. My APT is also getting worse, so that makes me look a little fatter than normal along with the baggy clothes. I think I’m okay on the stairs given that it was actually my first time going up and down them. It feels much easier to go up the stairs than down them. As for walking I don’t think my gait is that good right now. I definitely feel like things are harder than they were earlier on in lengthening. I also took this video with a zoom lens instead of ultrawide, so there might be some differences from that as well. My step distance definitely seems shorter in this video.

Making the video burned a bit of time, but it was still only the early afternoon and I didn’t really have much to do for the rest of the day. I guess the only thing to do was waste the afternoon on TV shows. I could still occasionally stretch while watching TV and try to find positions that were comfortable for me. While I was watching TV it got dark outside. Around 7pm I decided to do a lengthening session. It would be under 12 hours from the first lengthening, but I figured I’d need to get my body used to lengthening with less than 12 hours of rest in between otherwise it would be hard to switch back to 1mm/day. I did my exercises pretty efficiently and then ran the ERC. Everything was great and I decided to eat a CBD edible and then take a bath.

The edible didn’t kick in right away and I was playing on my phone while enjoying the hot water (though my tailbone was so uncomfortable I don’t want to take any more baths until my bath mattress gets here.) I put my phone down and within a few minutes I felt super comfortable and drowsy. I knew that the edible had kicked in and I really enjoyed soaking in the water for a bit, but of course I was way too comfortable like this and fell asleep. I don’t even remember how long I slept because I was so out of it when I woke up that I didn’t remember to look at the time. All I knew was that I was shivering because the water was cold already. I started draining the tub and stood up. Fortunately the pain relieving effects of the edible were still in effect and although my legs were a little weak I was able to stand in the tub. I dried myself off quickly, which warmed me up and then I got out of the tub and limped into my bedroom. I changed into sleeping clothes, but then realized I was incredibly hungry (I wonder why?) While I hadn’t eaten dinner I was in absolutely no condition to cook. I stood in the kitchen and ate/drank about 800 calories worth of snacks and called it a meal. Then I went to bed with a smile on my face because I could tell that I was going to fall asleep very quickly the second that my head hit the pillow.