Dr. Monegal - Tibia and Femur - Fitbone - glenn

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Glenn, when you get second surgery, the first leg will not be fully consolidated. Will u be wheel chair bound?

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H TrueSpartan,

Thank you for the well wishes! I'll keep updating best I can as long as I know people are reading!

About wheelchair bound.. yep, no way to avoid that. To say it positively, I'm looking forward to taking a break from walking and getting off my feet for a few months .  What's going through my mind? I'm more anxious than nervous, I suppose. I'm looking forward to getting settled into the MIC, but not that enthused about the first few days of post-op (I'm told I'll be on a catheter during the first couple of days of my hospital stay. No man looks forward to that experience )...

As mentioned last post, I met user Adonis this afternoon. He was nice enough to drive all the way to Can Vidalet to see me. We had a couple of drinks al fresco style on the sidewalk of the bistro. It was the most European thing I've done so far, so relaxing to just chat and watch the people come and go. I think this was the first time I actually had a real offline conversation with another LL'er. It was so refreshing to be able to just open up about my own height neurosis without risking any judgment from the other person. After dinner, we went to the Gothic Quarter for dinner at a charming and quiet Japanese restaurant.

As we walked to the restaurant from the car, we started to play a game of guessing the height of random tourists ("Psss, what about blue-shirt guy? I bet he's 5'9," "Nah, you're dreaming, strong 5'8 at most!") I would then "inconspicuously" walk up to them and tip toe to see how I measured up to their eye level. It's the most silly and neurotic game two LL'ers can play. Warning though, this game will feed your height neurosis and make you want LL even more .  Anyways, my point is that it was really good to be able to talk and joke with another LL'er in real life. Afterwards, Adonis was also very kind and gave me a lift back to my apartment even though he didn't have to. Thanks buddy!

Somebody asked me about fears... Dude, sitting on the passenger side of his car watching Adonis negotiate a roundabout is the scariest thing I've had to go through yet . Just kidding. I don't usually have roundabouts in my part of the world, so being in one in Europe was pretty exciting for me. But back to the topic of being scared. I'm not really scared of possible complications (if I was, I wouldn't be here!) since I have full faith in Dr. Monegal. If complications happen we'll deal with them as they come; I've already prepared as best I can. I'm afraid of many logistical things (didn't pack this, forgot to bring that, should have researched X, etc etc) but not about about complications, since I can't control those anyway.

Have to do my best to get some sleep now, doing pre-op tests at Clinica Diagonal tomorrow morning, Bona Nit!

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Nice diary glenn. Hope all goes well in your surgery

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Good luck with your surgery!
Keep us updated, your diary is amongst the most well written and informative ones here!

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Quote from: glenn on August 25, 2015, 10:29:04 PMH TrueSpartan,

Thank you for the well wishes! I'll keep updating best I can as long as I know people are reading!

About wheelchair bound.. yep, no way to avoid that. To say it positively, I'm looking forward to taking a break from walking and getting off my feet for a few months .  What's going through my mind? I'm more anxious than nervous, I suppose. I'm looking forward to getting settled into the MIC, but not that enthused about the first few days of post-op (I'm told I'll be on a catheter during the first couple of days of my hospital stay. No man looks forward to that experience )...

As mentioned last post, I met user Adonis this afternoon. He was nice enough to drive all the way to Can Vidalet to see me. We had a couple of drinks al fresco style on the sidewalk of the bistro. It was the most European thing I've done so far, so relaxing to just chat and watch the people come and go. I think this was the first time I actually had a real offline conversation with another LL'er. It was so refreshing to be able to just open up about my own height neurosis without risking any judgment from the other person. After dinner, we went to the Gothic Quarter for dinner at a charming and quiet Japanese restaurant.

As we walked to the restaurant from the car, we started to play a game of guessing the height of random tourists ("Psss, what about blue-shirt guy? I bet he's 5'9," "Nah, you're dreaming, strong 5'8 at most!") I would then "inconspicuously" walk up to them and tip toe to see how I measured up to their eye level. It's the most silly and neurotic game two LL'ers can play. Warning though, this game will feed your height neurosis and make you want LL even more .  Anyways, my point is that it was really good to be able to talk and joke with another LL'er in real life. Afterwards, Adonis was also very kind and gave me a lift back to my apartment even though he didn't have to. Thanks buddy!

Somebody asked me about fears... Dude, sitting on the passenger side of his car watching Adonis negotiate a roundabout is the scariest thing I've had to go through yet . Just kidding. I don't usually have roundabouts in my part of the world, so being in one in Europe was pretty exciting for me. But back to the topic of being scared. I'm not really scared of possible complications (if I was, I wouldn't be here!) since I have full faith in Dr. Monegal. If complications happen we'll deal with them as they come; I've already prepared as best I can. I'm afraid of many logistical things (didn't pack this, forgot to bring that, should have researched X, etc etc) but not about about complications, since I can't control those anyway.

Have to do my best to get some sleep now, doing pre-op tests at Clinica Diagonal tomorrow morning, Bona Nit!
You are in good hands. We cannot wait to hear from you. By the way, what kind of anesthesia are you going to get, general or epidural?

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Hey KrP1, thanks man. My surgery is less than 12 hours away. Hope to see you in person soon!

Hi Alittletooshort, thanks for the compliments. I'll do my best to keep it as informative as possible so others can learn from my experience.

Hi Concernedmom. Regarding anesthesia, actually it depends on my meeting with the anesthesiologist tomorrow. If I were to guess, I suppose it would be regional (ie spinal or epidural) + sedative. In any case, I'm knocked out for surgery.

Back to the story:

Remember in my previous post I said I was signing off and going to bed? Well, it turns out I didn't sleep for the whole night. I was too anxious/nervous to rest and I laid awake for the whole night. At 9:30am I walked from my apartment over to Clinica Diagonal to do my pre-op test.

The clinic is quite a large building, and very new. It's so clean that you get the impression that it was just built. I went up to the second floor (careful though, I think in Europe the second story is known as the "first floor", the ground level is the "ground floor" or "zero"). In any case, I went up a flight of stairs to registration and Pepe, the supervisor, pulled up my records to get the process underway. Pepe assigned a young girl, one of the admins, to babysit me. Her name was Berta and I'm so grateful that she was there to help, otherwise I would have been totally lost. Even though Berta was very young (she looks like she just finished school, if I were to guess), and I was visibly older than her, she really went out of her way to explain things to me and made sure I was at ease. This was true with all of the specialists that I met today. I think perhaps they could see the fear and confusion on my face 

The pre-op test is basically three tests: ECG (heart rate monitor), X-rays, and blood tests. For each of the tests you have to go to a different wing of the hospital and get in line (you're not the only one taking those tests, other locals are doing the tests as well for their own reasons). Luckily, with Berta by side, she was able to talk directly with the admins at each station and I didn't have to wait long to do any of the tests. Berta's English was good enough, and I had Google Translate on my phone so we got along fine.

The specialists that conducted the tests though, didn't really speak English. But that was the most fun part of the whole experience, as you'll see..

The first test I did was ECG. The specialist was a stunning young lady. As soon as I walked in she closed the door and said in English, "You, take your T-shirt off." Ha, well she didn't have to tell me twice! I was very willing to comply, and as I laid down on the bed she took my pulse. The test was over far too quickly and I was whisked away to the next station before I could give her my number 

The specialist at the blood test station was closer to middle-aged. Although she knew I didn't understand what she was saying, she still continued to talked to me in a very soothing tone to put my mind at ease. I'm guessing, but I could imagine she was saying, "There there, it won't hurt a bit. Nothing to worry about. See? All done." I'm always amazed and in great admiration of those people that go above and beyond their job to help allay another human being. The test only took a minute or two, and she didn't even have to talk to me, but she choose to be nice to me and I'm grateful for that.

For x-rays there was a separate waiting room and I was on my own. As the specialist arrived she started asking me questions without raising her head from her notes. When I didn't say anything she looked up. I just held a goofy grin until it dawned on her that I didn't speak Spanish or Catalan. She crinkled her eyebrows and I surmised that she was trying to ask me if I could please strip down to do the x-rays. I mimed the action and she nodded. I could see that she was relieved she didn't have to ask in English.

After taking my clothes off to yet another beautiful lady, I saw her go back to the control room and begin to refer to a translation cheat sheet (eg "How to tell the patient to stand straight in English"). Again the crinkled eyebrows. It was cute. In the end she gave up on the English and just did the positions herself and I would follow her pose and how/where she wanted me to stand, etc.

The entire pre-op process took about two hours, and by this time it was close to noon. Berta told me to go eat something and come back later since the x-rays would take a while to process.

It was about 12:45ish or so that I met up with Dr. Monegal. He looked over my test results and was satisfied there were no major problems. He also took me to meet user Bohemia (who is two days ahead of me in the process), really cool guy!

...

I want to talk a bit more about fears. For the past day I was really squeamish about the catheter, and I had let it get the better of me. People have been, "aren't you afraid of this" or "aren't you concerned about that", and I will admit, the more I thought about it the more the issue manifested itself. But I spent some time to meditate on it tonight, and I realized (again) that the only thing holding me back was myself.

I had to give myself a mental slap in the face: "Glenn, if you dislike the catheter so much then don't do the surgery." "Glenn, if it's such a hardship for you then just quit and go back to your old self. Nobody is forcing you to do this." I've been fighting to do LL for years, how foolish of me to let these petty concerns take hold of me now!

I believe the problem was HOW I saw the surgery. As I wrote this blog these past few days, I came to see the surgery as a "challenge," something that was wrought with hardship and obstacles. I had diverted from my original perception that LL is an "opportunity" for me to realize my dreams of outgrowing my limitations. Once you see something as difficult, your mind conjures up fears and insecurities. Once you see something as a reward, your mind salivates to possess it.

So what am I feeling now? It's 6am currently and I'm due at the hospital at 1pm. I'm back into a positive mental state and actually looking forward to the surgery (and yes, even looking forward to the catheter!). I want to leave you guys with one of my favorite poems of all time, by Berton Braley. It always pulls me into a positive direction, and hope that it can do the same for you:

Wish me luck guys, I'm here all alone so your support is GREATLY appreciated!

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Good luck Glenn! Excellent diary!

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Keep up the good work..glen. Cheers

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Good luck Glenn!

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All the best, Glenn. You have a great attitude towards this, keep it that way.
Waiting to see how it went.