Bigfaker - External Tibs - Dr. Sringari/Dr. __ - "We're Off To Slap the Wizard!"

NOTE: posting on both forums for obvious reasons...and in case I ever get banned. Also, if you want to read the beginning chapters of my story, I'm suuure you know where to find it.


So unfortunately, I was not able to keep up the diary that I had originally planned. However, I did take a fair amount of notes over this time and never really stopped journaling in my head. Also, I'll be relying on a lot of WhatsApp chats I've had to better recall things from last year and the year before. In that respect, I'll try to emulate Medium Drink's awesome diary. Also I don't think there's yet been a Sringari diary that has gone very far past frame removal.

I'll try to recount, to the best of my ability (and the extent of my notes/memories): the time in India; and then also detail my long, slow and difficult recovery here in the US; the headaches and blessings of life under Obamacare...AND, as a special bonus -- for readers of my diary only, an exclusive Bigfaker special, all major credit cards accepted, operators are standing by, act NOW -- I'll try to give you my "product reviews" of the various rehab/disability/strength products I've tried, like Exogen; Orthovisc and Cortisone; Botswelia, Mobilegs, iWalk, shower stability bars, balance trainers, weight machines (e.g. Cybex Multi-Hip and standing calf raise), and the incredibly awesome AlterG treadmill.

Before you ask: yes, I do have a crapload of walking videos for y'all. Not just of me, but an assortment of my fellow patients (from the original Sringari House), most of whom are fully recovered....so actually a couple of these would technically be running videos

Though I've been meaning to reboot my diary for years -- pretty much ever since I disappeared -- but my limited time and attention span would just not allow for it. However, as I'm having yet another surgery next month, I'm approaching a crossroads...and the therapeutic act of writing might help me retain what little sanity I have left.

So through this next phase, I just miiiiight be introducing a couple of new LL docs...right here in California (and I don't mean at Mahboubian's LLIA). I'm talking about board-certified orthopedic surgeons, trained at prestigious institutions here, with the senior doc a current board member of LLRS (formerly ASAMI).  But I won't ever be promoting them...or even recommending them. Contrary to what all the conspiracy nerds think, I have never shilled for any doc, nor have I explicitly discouraged anyone from seeing another. The amount of paranoid sh!t-talking that went on because I wanted to tell a story chronologically was just f*cking absurd. As I originally said waaaaay back in 2013: do your own research, meet all your prospectives, make your own.damn.decision. Just because I might recount a good or bad result, it does not amount to my promoting for or advisng against...in ANY way, shape or form! Even though there'e no actual liability, I sure as Hell don't want anyone blaming me or even the guilt on my conscience if something goes wrong.

As far as my experience in India, a WHOLE lot of crap did eventually go wrong for me, but none of it really had to do with Sringari. My Diary title does NOT refer to him.

Anyway, this is just me re-emerging. 


I know I'm being rather vague right now. As usual, it's intentional. Details to follow...when I get around to it. I still need to focus a lot of time on recovery and my upcoming surgery, while the other aspects of my life are unbelievably hectic right now. Sooooo, as per usual with me, you'll just have to check in to see what happens.

I have been eagerly awaiting your return, hoping for an "Arabian Nights" experience . 

Thanks, Aim.

I have 2+ years of writing rattling around in my head and my notes (not quiiiite "One Thousand and One", though). I hope I can let it all out somewhat intelligibly, rather than puking out big buckets of WordVomit.

Cheers

Hey [various people], thanks for the concern, y'all. Hand Sanitizer was only partially right. I was getting tired of all the ill-informed, speculating feckless fkholes making sh!t up, but that in itself was not enough to make me go dark. In all honesty, the main issue was time. Unlike almost every external patient about whom I have read, I brought much of my work life with me to India. And I have not just a regular "day job", but I run a business as well....a business that had a major event I was working on (remotely) from Gurgaon...on my laptop...while in frames (and after removal, too). You should have seen the reactions from the staff and other patients when they saw the amount of luggage I had, stuffed with equipment (and tubs of protein, Exogens I got on ebay for a couple guys, and various phasers and tricorders). [When I arrived at the Delhi airport-- not knowing each other yet, no local cell phone, and teeny-tiny bandwidth free airport Wifi for Skype -- it was a prolonged debacle, as Sunny kept ignoring the guy with 4 suitcases...because he thought it couldn't possibly have been a patient LOL.] So those career demands on my time/attention, plus the daily PT, keeping in touch with friends/fam/fiancé via Skype, and just needing a modicum of time to chill/decompress/watchTV-movies-porn to get away from the miserable existence of living in a crappy guest house halfway around the world from home while trapped in medieval torture devices.

I guess I should have said something about checking out before I did...only I hadn't really intended to just disappear. You may have gleaned from reading me that I'm pretty much an all-or-nothing type of person. So I kept telling myself I would go back, but my intense OCD was telling me that if I didn't have time to do it right (meaning FakerStyleTM), that I shouldn't do it  at all. Damn, I talked myself into a circle again.

Anyway, sorry I worried y'all. It's nice to have been missed (plus take this as an explanation/justification for if/when it happens next time)  

[ChrisInthesky],

[I know you may not be here anymore, either...but if you're lurking] MAN! I'm SOOOOOO sorry I left you hanging. But I DID PM you before I went dark...and you didn't reply, so it's on YOU haha.

My heart seriously broke a little when I read (too late) that you were coming to CA and needed a ride. I totally could have driven up from SD and picked you up...Hell, you could have stayed with me (or my LA fam) and I could have taken you around SoCal.

Anyway, In the off-chance you ever come back on here, hope you're doing well. What I saw of your recovery (I love TRX bands!) looks truly awesome!

February 27, 2014 (Thursday)

One of our LL brothers was leaving the next day, and he hadn't really gotten to see anything in India besides the airport, the guest house, and two hospitals, so we planned a night of sightseeing in Delhi. Staring at the same walls for months on end, we were all pretty psyched to just get the f*ck OUT. That afternoon, I had finally found a way to deal with the boredom of doing the stationary bike -- by grabbing a pair of Vic Firths and playing super-hyped air drums to my fave playlists while pedaling -- so I had 90 minutes of the best workout the guest house could possibly provide me. And riding that surge of endorphins, I was feeling better that evening than I had since getting the frames put on December 17th. Isn't it ironic...dontcha think? [in hindsight, anyway]

One guy was feeling crappy, another didn't want to venture out in frames, so the remaining four patients, two caretakers, two PTs, and the assistant guest house manager piled into a couple cars and headed off to Delhi, bringing a wheelchair and two wheeled office chairs in the trunks. We drove by Embassy Row, then took a circle of Connaught Place:


Then we stopped at The India Gate. After that night I can definitively tell you this: one LL patient in public is a curiosity. Two are a rather bizarre sideshow. Four guys with bilateral fractures (2 of them in frames), a wheelchair, a couple of office chairs, a pair of crutches and five assorted attendants is the whole three-ring f.ucking circus.

We wheeled around the Gate for a while, with all the "WTF" stares and people pointing and quizzical looks one would expect. While we mostly kept to our group, our resident social butterfly kept getting into conversations with random groups of people. Mr. Butterfly bought some of the street food and offered me a bite. Curious, it tried it [Ruh Roh?] It wasn't very cold out or anything, and we were not outside for more than an hour probably. But on the way home, one of us patients got seriously nauseated. It wasn't me, but [Warning Sign?]

As had become the routine for our farewell sendoffs, we had ordered a couple cakes from a bakery for the pitiful little party at the house. [Bad idea?] So those were awaiting us at "home". We also stopped on the way back to order some dinner from Schwarma House. [Fatal Mistake?] Hey, it's good enough for The Avengers, right?

Finally getting back to the Guest House, my legs felt like they had doubled in size...and not in the intended way. All that sitting in the car just gave me the feeling that I had a couple boulders attached at the knees. Getting inside, we had another one of our Pitiful Parties, sans booze this time. Schwarma Schwarma, Cake Cake, Pictures Pictures, etc etc. Nothing really tasted weird or felt "off", but [F*ck, This Is not Going To End Well, Is It?]

The next morning, I was half-delirious when my buddy stopped in to say goodbye before leaving for the airport [for his flight back to...um, let's say..."Namibia". Or you pick a country. It's Mad Libs Diary Day]. I was coherent enough to say goodbye, but all I really remember about the rest of that day was feeling f*cking FREEZING COLD. Then BURNING UP...then freezing again...then burning...lather, rinse, repeat. I remember Harry giving me a thermometer that day (Friday) and it read like 99-something, so I didn't think it was gonna be a major thing. That night was mostly delirium, but I do distinctly remember looking out the window and seeing Martin Luther King juggling some chainsaws while riding a unicorn across our backyard.

On Saturday morning, I took my temp again and it was 104.3. One Hundred F.ucking Four Point F.ucking Three. In my life experience, that's not a body temperature, that's the goddamn frequency for an Oldies radio station! Harry got me into a car and we went to Paras Hospital to see an internist. He asked a few questions, took temp and BP, and wrote a few scrips. About the same as one would get at a busy county hospital in a low-income area of the US. The humongous difference though? I paid in cash. The amount? Six hundred rupees (about NINE BUCKS! YOU CAN SUCK IT OBAMACARE! And the prescriptions were only SIX BUCKS! YOU CAN SUCK IT TOO, BIG PHARMA!). We ran into Dr. Sringari in the hallway and he ribbed me in his usual affable, jovial way: "Not feeling good? Too much party? Heheh" Not the biggest show of concern, but he would kinda redeem himself later on.

The next 36 hours of that weekend I would not wish on anyone. Interspersed amongst the constant cycle of freezing-to-death and burning-up came (it seemed) hourly trips to our (already disgusting) bathroom [I told y'all how my roommate and I had to share it with the 5 live-in and 3 daytime staff guys, right? Not to mention the upstairs patients who came down to workout/hang out] Anyway, I was in that f*cking hole so much I should have just brought my pillow and blanket. QUESTION: if it's called "The Runs" when you have two functional legs, whaddaya call it when you have to scoot yourself around on a rolly-chair? "The Wheels"? "The Scoots"? "The LL Intestinal Hell Shuffle"? Sunday morning, I took a chance that I could stomach food for the first time since that night of the party, so I took a bite of breakfast. For some reason, our chef Kishoor had decided to pack his normally decent egg salad sandwiches with enough incredibly-pungent Indian onions to brings tears to the eye...the eye of a f.ucking hurricane. I spit that sh!t up so fast, it made vapor trails coming out of my mouth. One small grace was that week stayed pretty much vomit-free.

I thought the fever "broke" (that's what Moms say, right?) on Monday, but the normalcy I briefly felt, cycled back into alternating burning-up and freezing-cold yet again that night. I had taken all of the fever meds they had given me Saturday (OK, so maybe I just got what I paid for with that six bucks), so I made do with Tylenol (and whiny calls to fam and fiancé back home). By Wednesday, I still was not much better, so I got schlepped to the hospital again. This time, a different internist came down to Doc Sringari's secondary office for my exam and checked me out there. Dr. Sringari sat in on this one, asking InternistGuy some questions, seeming involved -- pretty much making up for our previous meeting -- and maintaining the impression I already had: that he's ostensibly a caring doctor. But he was also concurrently working on a PowerPoint presentation about OSHA stuff for his new venture...so that went right along with the impression we had been developing that he's an impossibly BUSY doctor.

Had blood and piss tests taken, plus sent home with a container for the TestThatShallNotBeNamed. Had to pay around INR5000 for everything, plus the taxi. Harry had paid for the car the first time and said I was to foot the bill this second time, but I just gave him the money for both. Whether it had been paid for by him personally or the Guest House budget, Faker don't like owin' nobody for nuthin'. That third goddamn lab test was just a horror. First attempt was accidentally thrown away by (caretaker) Deepu when he was cleaning. Couldn't f.ucking BELIEVE I had to do it again. Sunny, probably going way beyond the call of an Assistant House Manager's duty, took that doodoo sample -- that I put inside a Ziplock in another Ziplock in another bag in another bag in a cardboard box -- off to Paras...on his motorcycle LOL. That's some sh!tty f*cking work, right there (try THAT, Mike Rowe!). He picked up some meds to replace a pack I lost, too. Say what you will about Sunny -- there have been so many accusations and things surrounding him that we have heard about. Personally, he always got me anything I asked for -- this laptop, ATM withdrawals, leg covers, internet service -- in a prompt manner. I know some of our guys had mad issues with him while there -- and I kept those in at the back of my mind -- but it's hard to accept things so contrary to one's personal experience, joono?

As usual, this story started its life as a leaflet (in my head) and has evolved into my typical tome. Soooooooo, by the eighth day of the ordeal, I FINALLY started to turn the corner and was back to life that next weekend (March 8/9). I had stopped lengthening the first few days I was sick, the only days (besides the day before frame removal) that I didn't turn since my first mm on Christmas. Pretty ironic that whatever did cause that f*cked-up experience in India, it's probably only there in India that I would have been able to have a staff of caretakers around 24/7 to help me out while I was sick. Being laid up like that here at home, I would have been by myself most of the day. The moral of this excessively long tale?...um...well...let's see...OK, I got it!: Don't hang out with guys from [Namibia]. They'll always try to f.ucking poison you before they skip town.

Quote from: nextinline34 on April 21, 2016, 12:04:51 AMUmm are you serious?
You didn't answer anyone's question.
CAN YOU WALK? CAN YOU RUN?
What % are you of recovery? 1-100%?


These are the important questions man.

Yo, I'll cut you a break, since you probably didn't read the intro of my diary back when I started....or when I came back, for that matter.

Quote from: Bigfaker on December 11, 2013, 12:50:55 AMI remember an Em Em Tee member months (or years) ago griping that somebody's diary was littered with too much non-relevant BS. And I also recall the many times diary-writers (diary-ers? no? too gross?) would have to stomp their foot with "I didn't write this for you, I wrote it for ME!". Well, I think they're both right. I do write as an outlet sometimes, just to depressurize the intense swelling of my little brain. So I have to warn you guys that this diary might be filled with a bunch of useless cra* that don't nobody care about. Conversely, it is a community, one from which I have learned 90% of what I know about LL, so I want to pay it forward and provide as much info and insight (from my possibly unique perspective) as I can.
So that's why I made the markers...that, and the fact that I was doing anything I humanly could to avoid going back to work one afternoon. In addition to the Travel and the LL, I'll try to touch a bit on Aftercare, Financial, Medical issues, India Itself, Motivation/Inspiration, and General Bull (in which case the aforementioned griper can look for this icon and skip to the next section):

...So it's quite possible I keep an amazingly thoughtful, profound, hilarious, inspiring, informative journal...for like a week -- while I am up every night worried as hell and running on the nervous adrenaline. And after that: "F*CK y'all, I'm in PAIN!"

Quote from: Bigfaker on April 18, 2016, 09:47:01 PMThough I've been meaning to reboot my diary for years -- pretty much ever since I disappeared -- but my limited time and attention span would just not allow for it. However, as I'm having yet another surgery next month, I'm approaching a crossroads...and the therapeutic act of writing might help me retain what little sanity I have left.
...I know I'm being rather vague right now. As usual, it's intentional. Details to follow...when I get around to it. I still need to focus a lot of time on recovery and my upcoming surgery, while the other aspects of my life are unbelievably hectic right now. Sooooo, as per usual with me, you'll just have to check in to see what happens.

I should clarify, at no point did I ever say I was coming back to write for nextinline34, when he demands it, how he wants it, and detailing what he wants in it. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Also, I originally wrote that chapter back in India, the night before my frame removal.

If you think my particular case could have anything to do with what yours might be, you probably have a rude awakening coming for you. Unless you share my age range (late 30s-early 40s), my genetic make-up, my anatomy/musculature; my injury, dietary and medical history; my work ethic (or lack of it), my good luck/misfortune (or my spot in the universe of random permutations, if you're rational/empirical) -- with a significant overlap of these things -- there's incredibly little chance the results of my LL would even remotely parallel yours. Also, you know that ONE is not a significant sample size, right? And have you ever heard the idiom "Correlation is not Causation"?

If all you want is relevant data, and (how it might affect your decision), there are quite a few Sringari diaries, many more India diaries, a sh!t-ton of External LON diaries available to you. I'm sure those vets will all be happy to serve your every want and need.



So there's your f.ucking data. Happy?

Holy   thats rough.   

You have had it hardddd man. That would be a nightmare outcome, although not as bad as crimson. Atleast it's still fixable but still ...pretty bad considering how long it has been since initial surgury. 

I really hope you get well soon man. I think ocean(I think it was ocean) also had a bonegraft done. He made a post about it and his malunion was fixed in no time.

Do you think if you took plenty of vitamin d supplements it may have been avoided. I am not expert but I think your body can't absorb as much calcium without vitamin d either

Thanks, Spartan

I've had it harder than some, not as hard as others. :-I

I was taking D3 with my calcium, stuff like this:


I just had no idea that 800IU was insufficient. My new ortho said I need to be on 5000!

It's confusing, with the 4,986,475,312 doctors or "doctors" on the web now. Someone had told me that Calcium needs Magnesium for absorption. So, I was flying a little blind for a while. And the (non-LL) ortho I was going to for a while did not offer up any real solutions.

First I have to preface this post by reminding anyone reading that this is a different type of LL blog. There are a plethora of great diaries out there and -- if you want griping, and complaining; debating about ballerina, X-legs and proportions; and all the stupid sh!t people say about this doctor and that doctor -- there are about seven million other places I could point you to for that. What I try to do when I write is an alternate, dare-I-say holistic type of discourse, from my perspective as a guy with 4 broken bones in his legs.

So I'm rather devastated this week. It was already rough enough dealing with visiting family, SEVERAL work deadlines, my regular PT and gym workouts, and fending off occasional trolls...or trollish-type people. And then hearing the news of Prince's passing Thursday...well, it took something extraordinary for me to climb out of my hole and post again this week.


Here was an itty-bitty little man, just 5'2" feet tall and maybe 130 pounds...and yet a legend, an icon who ruled (pun intended) his industry. Someone who had garnered the admiration and adulation of tens of millions around the world.

And, I wasn't going to get into this particular aspect until much later on, but I see so many posts and topics and discussions about needing height for attracting women. I really don't think getting taller should just be about getting women. I mean, I can understand it being perhaps a partial motivation, but it shouldn't be your main overall reason. God, I truly hope no one is doing that.

Prince showed us how a small, slightly-built guy could make the hottest women on Earth just drool. Maybe you don't have incredible talents, wealth, charisma and magnetism of His Purpleness...OK, so you'd probably never have shot at a young Carmen Electra or Apollonia or Vanity (RIP as well) in their prime. But if you exude even one one-thousandth of that confidence, some of the "I-don't-give-a-f.uck"-ness (^TMBigfaker) -- that was so obvious in his music, his style, his demeanor -- maybe you can get the cutie at the coffee shop down the street to give you her number.

It's not just with da ladies that your attitude will get you places. Yes, this is the f.ucking internet, but still, so many people go around with just the worst energy...whether it's the the paranoia, the negativity, the need to race-bait. Have you ever looked at any comments on YouTube? It's a goddamn freak show. Anyway, my belabored point is -- no matter your height -- if you carry yourself with class and confidence; an egalitarian heart and a magnanimous spirit; you'll be amazed how many more doors open for you than if you walk around pissed off at God and The World.

Like I said, this was already a tough week....and now one of my heroes, one of my inspirations, is gone. But after this brief mourning, there'll be little wallowing in sorrow. When we lose people that influence us -- whether family, role models, or idols -- I think it's the best tribute we can make just to live our lives, incorporating their messages, their lessons, or their love...and feeling fortunate for having been touched by them.