Dr. Monegal (Barcelona) - Two stage internal Femur - Fitbone

Background: I just had my first femur segment completed yesterday at the Clinica Diagonal. For those that are interested, I'll post my thoughts as I go through the procedure, however, my time is limited since I have to continue to work during my 5 week stay.  I am about 5' 7" and an American if you could not tell by the backwards ass way we use in calculating measurements.  Why we chose not to embrace the metric system is beyond me but i digress.  One important aspect about me is that I'm 50+ years old, I know most of you are much younger.  There is one patient much older than me that is going though the procedure as well. According to Dr. Monegal, he is doing great; I have not yet met this other patient but I look forward to meeting him at some point.

I have been contemplating this surgery for sometime now, about 15 years.   Although, I do feel I am expressing a certain amount of vanity in my decision to go though with this; my height has bothered me for a long time and I am still very conscience of my stature; something I could do without.    I had been corresponded with Dr. Monegal over e-mail for the last few months.  My impression at this point is that he is very caring and is very passionate about his work. I will say that I was expecting a more detailed discussion, with Dr. Monegal, about what I should expect during my 5 week stay.  However, I think Dr. Monegal is very confident in his work and since he will do what he needs to do in order to meet ones expectations; i think he is prone to leaving out details unless you press him which i did not.  Since i was here, I was already committed to doing this.

Risk Factor:

I have been on this forum long enough to know that at least one patient had complications and I can certainly sympathize with them.   However, I would not have come to Barcelona if I did not have full trust in Dr. Monegal.  This is not to say that I did a "ton" of research but i did consider the risks vs. benefits and decided to go though with it.

Clinica Diagonal:

The Clinic is terrific; private room, good food (although I'm not very picky) and a wonderful staff.  I only wish I had taken the time to learn Spanish before arriving.  I feel like I have wasted so much of the staff time by only speaking English. The pre-op experience was a bit frustrating for me because of my Spanish deficiency, I can only imagine how frustrating it was for clinic staff, but they did no show it.   I have visited France and Italy several times and found many more Italian and French that spoke at least broken English than I have found in Spain. You can defiantly visit Paris, Nice, Rome, Venice, and get though the day only speaking English.  This should not be construed in anyway to put down the Spaniards, this was defiantly my short coming since I'm he one visiting their Country - so far they have all been terrific to me!  One thing to note is that the average stature of Spaniards is less that other countries that I have visited.  I would not consider myself tall here by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't feel that I am overly short here either....just a thought, nothing more.

Pain/Discomfort.

My leg started to swell up during the night; I would think this is expected, I'll ask Dr. Monegal when i see him - hopefully today. At this point its' very uncomfortable but I would not classify it as painful yet.  I am now going without the pain relief drip so it may get a bit more painful.  In fact, I can feel the escalation of discomfort.

If you have any questions of me I would be glad to try and answer them but any in depth questions or medical advise should be left to be answered by Dr. Monegal or others on this forum who are qualified.

All the best to you!
Will you be staying at the Mic after you get out of the Clinica Diagonal?

I will watch your diary very carefully my friend because it is very important to have more successful cases from Monegal.
If you have a good result like yagen, auron, helloworld etc and Monegal doesn't increase his prices then I'm sure he would be the first choice for many of us in Europe who want internal LL.

Keep strong and congratulations for your courage to do this surgery at that age !

Hey Four Inch! I did meet that older person that you're talking and he was doing great indeed. Older people tend to feel more pain but hopefully it won't be the case for you. Good luck 

Hi all, and thank you for the kind words of encouragement. 

Helloworld; Yes I will be staying at MIC, Dr. Monegal kindly offered to drive me there; I believe I will be at MIC next Monday.

Body Builder, it's very early of course but so far I'm impressed with Dr. Monegal.

Auron, that's great that you got to meet him.  I understand that he is doing so well that he is vacationing with his family somewhere on the coast.  i hope I my testimonial is just as positive.

I will see you at Mic then, when I come to visit next time to see some of my friends there. :-)

Hi Four Inch Fold,

From a fellow 5'7, wish you the best for this experience. Keep us informed!

Hello All,

It's been almost 3 full days since my surgery and I am feeling very confident at the moment.  I am not taking any pain killers.  Although I do have shooting pain in my knee when I twist my leg laterally, aside from that, the pain has been mild at best. I can move myself from my bed to a rolling recliner without assistance - although the nurse this morning caught me in that act and seemed a little startled and kindly suggested that I call her for assistance.   I am by nature very independent and like to be able to roll my recliner in to the bathroom and empty my own pee bucket.  

Although I have never been hospitalized for days at a time,  my inexperienced perception is that the members of the nursing staff here at the Clinic are exceptional;  I think I'm developing a crush on one in particular  .  Although I, like most I presume, don't like visiting hospitals in general, I am very comfortable here, no "hospital smell", very clean and modern and I even have a great view of Barcelona from the window in my room.

I do understand that there are risks associated with this procedure and it is exactly those risks that prevented me from doing this long ago.  I do believe the procedure has come a very long way in the last 10 years and my instinct is that it's time for me to have the procedure done or live the rest of my life feeling a little less confident in myself. Although I sometimes consider it pure vanity, it bothers me enough to accept the risks and get it done. 

To quote a line in a favorite movie of mine, "Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place".    i.e. With any  surgical procedure, there can be complications. However, my research lead me to believe that Dr. Monegal's record of success is most impressive.    My biggest concern at the moment is not the complications of the procedure itself, but in disciplining myself to accept the responsibilities of a good patient in making sure that I respect the recovery process and refrain from inducing complications myself.

Albeit a third day impression, on a personal level I feel I made excellent choice in surgeons.  Dr. Monegal has been terrific and very supportive.  I think I could ask him for anything and he would go out of his way to make it happen.  The procedure seems to have gone very well and my x-rays look good. if there should be complications (knock on wood) I'm feeling I would be in good hands with Dr. Monegal.

We'll, it's 8:30 AM in New York, time for me to get logged in and working.  Until next time.

Cheers!

Hello fellow forum members,

I have just moved over to MICs; Dr Monegal was kind enough to chauffeur me and another one of his patients over to the MIC's.  The facility here is very nice, much nicer than I expected. Everyone has been very friendly and helpful at MICs.

I am pretty excited that I was able to begin lengthening today and I remain confident that things will continue to progress smoothly.   Surprisingly, at no time did I ever feel anything that I would classify as pain thus far during this procedure, at least while resting my leg.  I did have some shooting pain when I moved my leg in order to get it positioned to stand up, it seems the lateral movements were the hardest.  I learned to use my good leg to assist the other leg with lateral movements, once that technique dawned on me the pain was gone.   In the beginning, there was also a bit of tolerable pain surrounding my knee cap when bending the leg more that 60 degrees or so. 

You are probably all familiar with the stretching machine that is used by the PT's on a daily basis.  I was chugging along daily, building from 80-85-90-95-100 degrees, with the same PT.  Then on Sunday walks in "Carlos the Slayer" (PT by profession).  Carols is a long bearded chap with a seemingly very calm disposition.  I got the feeling that there is not much that alarms or gets to Carlos.  Carlos enter my room, introduced himself and then  casually says, "You have been doing 100, lets try 110 degrees" -  and were off to the races.  The previous PT was moving me up in 5 degree increments so I was not sure what to expect with a 10 degree increase all at once.  Although I was up to it, I can't say that it did not hurt the first 10 repetitions, it did indeed.  In fact, the first five felt like my knee cap was about to explode.   However, I'm glad I did not complain or ask to tone it down a notch;  after the first 10 reps the pain did smooth out and I was actually looking forward to the upcoming rep.  I wish Carlos would have graced my room with his presence earlier in my stay;  I think the intense stretching really helps.  I wish I could have taken that machine and Carlos the Slayer with me to the MICs.

Although far from a pro, I can get around on crutches; I made a short jaunt to the Shop down the street to grab a bottle of Cola and napkins; I've been craving a Coke since my second day at the clinic.  Surprisingly the MICs provides everything your need but there was no starter package with things like a few napkins, condiments  etc. (but there was a bowl of fruit that was a pleasant surprise) -  I just now go up to check to see if there was any toilet paper as I had forgotten to check, luckily either the MIC's or the last occupant left a few rolls so I am fully stocked on that item.

I have meet a few fellow LLer's since starting the procedure.  A young man at the clinic that very much impressed me with his control and wisdom.  I believe he was only lengthening 4cm, something that seems to be rarely done; many (me included) want as much bang for their investment as they can tolerate. This young man has inspired me to do some very hard thinking as I lengthen to determine where to stop the process.

The second person I met was from a neighboring country and was on his second limb.  He was the other patient that Dr. Monegal shuttled over to MICs today.  He seemed to be doing fabulous, he looked just as tall as Dr. Monegal to me (something I'm pretty sure is a foul in Dr. Monegal's rule book)  - he also spoke better English than me which kind of pissed me off 

As i walked into the MICs, I met a very beautiful and friendly young lady. I learned quickly that she happened to be a forum member who I consider to be the most influential third party in helping me select my surgeon.  This influence was merely based on her public posts throughout the forum.

As mentioned, I am feeling very confident but continue to understand the risk that I have accepted with this procedure.  So far, I think I have been slightly lucky with how well things seem to have gone; however, I have nothing but kudos for Dr. Monegal thus far.

We'll time to get back to work......unfortunately, I still need to work for my living while here in Barcelona.


Cheers everyone!

Great to see a new diary from Dr. Monegal's patient. We really need more like yours ! Please keep us informed. Wish you a pleasant lengthening journey ahead !

- Daw