Femur Lengthening with Dr. Paley/Robbins June 2021

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Congrats bro.. Great report of events. Would it be possible to share a walking video?

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Quote from: Growing on September 21, 2021, 01:55:49 AMCongrats bro.. Great report of events. Would it be possible to share a walking video?

Thanks. I will post a walking video once I can get off the walker, which is still a few weeks away.

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2 Days Before Surgery:
COVID test, EOS x-ray and lab work.

My tibia to femur ratio is 0.79

1 Day Before Surgery:
Consultation with Dr. Robbins. He asked me more questions than I asked him, since I already done lots of research.

Dr. Robbins informed me that my femur and tibia are not straight, so they will work around that and this surgery would put them in a more neutral position.

Dr. Paley came in later just for a few minutes. We didn’t discuss much. I think he only wanted to perform a quick psychological evaluation before surgery.

Doctors at Paley Institute work as a team, so don’t expect Dr. Paley performing all of the surgeries and follow-ups.

PAT test afterward. They withdrew more blood and took a chest x-ray.  Was told no food after midnight. 

 
Day 1- Surgery:
I arrived at surgery building early at 6am. They walked me into the Pre-Op room.  Dressed in the hospital gown, and had IV injected into my left hand.  The anesthesiologist came by and informed me that they will give a numbing injection into the spinal cord, just before waking up from surgery.  I asked the nurse if I will have urine catheter. Thank God, she said it was not required.  I was able to use the urine bottle pretty easily on the recovery bed.

Near the surgery time at 8am, the nurse injected something in my IV, and I was disoriented and eventually passed out before they even rolled my bed to the surgery room. 

I woke up with a very heavy feeling on my leg.  I was cold, shivering and shaking.  The pain was about 3-4 since the numbing injection was still in effect. The heaviness of the legs and the inability to move was actually worse than the pain for me.  I also felt extremely weak.  I felt my strength reduced to about 10%.

The doctors and nurses told me the surgery went well, even though I was put on a ventilator due to my lung didn’t like my bones were being reamed and drilled.

The entire thighs were swollen, and the bottom of my hamstrings were heavily bruised. 

Learning from other diaries, I asked for pain medication before the pain escalated.  I always took 10mg of Oxycodone before going to sleep.  Without it, I wouldn’t able to sleep due to pain, heaviness, and tingling feeling all night.

Day 2:
Pain management was actually easy. I took 10mg of Oxycodone 3 times a day.  Always a 10mg dose before going to sleep. 

I peed almost every 2-3 hours due to the amount of fluid in the IV.

The nurse took my blood about 3-4 times daily to monitor my progress.  However, it took a toll on my body due to my small stature.  I was depleted and my blood pressure was very low if I start exerting physically.

The PT came by in the afternoon and tried to have me sitting up on the bed with my legs on the floor.  As soon as I moved my leg on the floor and sit up, I almost passed out from low blood pressure.  I had to lay back down. 

I felt very disappointed in myself. The nurse said the guy next door started walking with the walker 2 days post-surgery, and I couldn’t get even sit up straight on the bed.  At this moment, I really thought that my body is just much weaker than the average people.  I started having doubts about this surgery and if my body capable of reaching 8cm limit.

Day 3:
I allowed blood withdraw only once a day and declined when they tried to withdraw more than once.

The PT came by in the afternoon again. This time I was able to sit on the edge of the bed without passing out.  They wanted me to stand up on a walker.  It was probably one of the hardest things I ever done due to the pain and weakness.  I was able to stand on the walker for a few seconds, before laying back down due to low blood pressure again.  At least today was an improvement compared to previous day.

Day 4:
My strength was slowing recovering.  I was able to stand up on the walker and transfer to a wheelchair. 

Pain was about 2-3. 

Day 5:
I was discharged from the hospital in the morning.  Since the bus drivers from the clinic don't work on the weekend, I had to arrange my own transportation back to the hotel.

Using the walker to lower myself into the toilet and shower chair was very painful. The incision and muscle trauma were still fresh. I later used the wheelchair to transfer, which reduced the pain significantly.  So I ended using only the wheelchair in the hotel room.

I took a shower later that day for the first time since surgery.  Took an Oxy and slept like a baby.

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Quote from: zidank on September 20, 2021, 10:36:08 PMI had some nerve pain behind the left knee at around 5-6cm, when straightening my leg or standing up. I was prescribed nerve pain medication. The condition didn’t improve but it kept the pain in check.  The nerve pain was gone less than week after I reached 8cm.

I still have some numbness on the left leg, that probably is not a coincidence. It’s improving slowly everyday.

I also had all kind of random pains during the distraction phase: pretty bad pain in the hamstring at the osteotomy site that went away within 1-2 weeks, random shooting knees pain 2nd week after surgery that went away within a week, knee pain at 5-6cm when I performed knee bend stretching that went away after I reached 8cm.

Some people will have all kind of random pains during the distraction phase, since soft tissues being stretched to the limit. With lots of stretching, your body will adapt and the pain will eventually subside.
Thanks for your reply and informative post. I hope you get well soon.

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Did you only take 2 weeks off and then worked remotely? How did you fit in your PT sessions while working?

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Quote from: hamster7 on December 03, 2021, 04:06:42 PMDid you only take 2 weeks off and then worked remotely? How did you fit in your PT sessions while working?

I only took 2 weeks off, then started working remotely.

Every Monday, I blocked out 2 hours on my calendar for each day for the whole week. I communicated this schedule to the team. They were able to work around it without issues. My job is also pretty flexible too, so I can work outside of business hours.