Quote from: StrydeNailChallenge on November 15, 2020, 11:03:51 PMDay 109 Post-op (Sun., Nov. 8 ) - Consolidation Day 28
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Day 116 Post-op (Sun., Nov. 15) - Consolidation Day 35 *
* Weekly updates make more sense (than daily updates) during consolidation. I still list all the days; just in case someone would like to search for a certain day. E.g., searching for "112" would hopefully point at the post with the updates related to Day 112.
Day 117 Post-op (Mon., Nov. 16) - Consolidation Day 36
Day 118 Post-op (Tue., Nov. 17) - Consolidation Day 37
Day 119 Post-op (Wed., Nov. 18) - Consolidation Day 38
Day 120 Post-op (Thurs., Nov. 19) - Consolidation Day 39
Day 121 Post-op (Fri., Nov. 20) - Consolidation Day 40
Day 122 Post-op (Sat., Nov. 21) - Consolidation Day 41
Day 123 Post-op (Sun., Nov. 22) - Consolidation Day 42
Updates:
Exercises: I have continued to do the stretching exercises I posted in my dairy. The latest version is version 2.1 on page 12. I do a typical 3 session per day workout with each session taking about 20 minutes. I also do a couple short indoor cycling sessions per day. I have stopped cycling in the last two days to see whether the slight pain in the screws' area on left leg (upper thigh/butt area) is due to cycling or the walks. In addition to walking here and there at home to do my work and run errands, I make sure to walk 1.5 miles (increased it 2, then 2.5 and now 3 miles per day) daily in a park nearby. I am sure I can walk for much longer distances, Doing 3 miles, I feel I should not push for longer distances. I therefore plan to keep the daily walks in the park limited to 3 miles per day.
I see improvement in my gait, and daily activities, such as stair climbing, in terms of strength and flexibility. For example I have been able to sit on a bed, sofa, chair etc. without using hands as support. I have recently been able to stand from a sitting position without using my hands if the height of the sitting area is fairly high. if the height is low, I need momentum by moving my body forward and sometimes using my hands on my knees to be able to stand.
The only exception is the numbness feeling on left tibia; which has not gotten better.
I am still hopeful I meet my own goal of getting back to normal (pre-surgery) on every terms by Day 180.
CLL'ers, please feel free to let me know what your definition of normal is and I try my best to see whether I can meet them by Day 180.
By the way, the reason I chose Day 180 as my deadline is that Dr. M. had told me that one of his patients could be back to normal (as if no surgery were done on him) in 6 months. Of course longer legs may define a new normal on some aspects, but I think there is this feeling you would have that you would think, I feel totally normal. I don't have it yet. It's actually far from it. I wanna see if I can feel normal by Day 180 and I know my best way to get there would be with PTs, exercises and workouts.
Femurs with Dr. Shahab Mahboubian - July 2020
Good job strydenailchallonge
thank you for this diary
i wud define normal as being able to do everything a normal person can do without pain even sports just poor strength, and like you dont even feel like you did surgery to legs ever or even did LL. i wud say this probably takes 15 months+
if going by the LL doctor's definition of normal, it's probably just 90%+ gait but pain/numbness is still there and everything. 6 month is normal as in u can walk and go to work but not normal normal as if LL never happened if you know what i mean
now for my cliche answer/for fun: i think the true normal is 3 years later when you don't even think about height anymore and this surgery isn't even a thought in your head anymore, it's just a phase that passed, history... and you don't come back to this forum
Quote from: ghkid2019 on November 23, 2020, 09:04:48 AMGood job strydenailchallonge
thank you for this diary
i wud define normal as being able to do everything a normal person can do without pain even sports just poor strength, and like you dont even feel like you did surgery to legs ever or even did LL. i wud say this probably takes 15 months+
if going by the LL doctor's definition of normal, it's probably just 90%+ gait but pain/numbness is still there and everything. 6 month is normal as in u can walk and go to work but not normal normal as if LL never happened if you know what i mean
now for my cliche answer/for fun: i think the true normal is 3 years later when you don't even think about height anymore and this surgery isn't even a thought in your head anymore, it's just a phase that passed, history... and you don't come back to this forum
Hey ghkid2019, Happy to see you here! It's been a while and I was wondering when you'd be back! A sad reality of this forum is that any of us would stop at some point posting and if others are used to them, they would wonder what happened, miss them ...
I believe your definition of normal is correct and there is a very high chance that the record holder patient of Dr. M. who was back to normal in 6 months, was not following that definition. The chance that I would feel normal by Day 180 is probably as bad a 75 year old psycho, showing some signs of logic and empathy on his birthday 
but I try to fix my walking, gait, running, stair climbing, swimming, etc. by Day 180. I hope I can make it, but even that does not look that great I'll try to post a video by the end of the week so you guys judge for yourself how my gait looks these days.
Quote from: StrydeNailChallenge on November 15, 2020, 11:03:51 PMDay 109 Post-op (Sun., Nov. 8 ) - Consolidation Day 28
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Day 116 Post-op (Sun., Nov. 15) - Consolidation Day 35 *
Flexibility: I think I can now keep my legs very straight without any knee bending issues, while standing tall.
As for bending legs, I see major improvement: I can now bend my right knee all the way to 170 degrees or so. It's very close to my right foot touching my butt. My left is still lagging behind and I think I can bend my left to 160 degrees or so. My quads get a bit sore. At times they feel like rocks, and they are the major barrier for not getting the full 180 degrees bending yet. I hope this will happen in a week or two.
Quote from: StrydeNailChallenge on November 17, 2020, 04:53:11 PMI don't have pain either. For most of the day, I can't even feel it, unless I touch the shin area skin. I mean while bending legs do you feel discomfort (not related to numbness) or can you bend your legs like 180 degrees?
I can't. My left goes to about 160 degrees and right to 170. I am just hoping by the time I can bend my legs completely at 180 degrees, somehow the numbness disappears.
Hello All,
I have an update based on a PT visit I had yesterday. Those who followed my journey know that I mostly did self-PT'ing.
Yesterday I went for my third PT center visit, since the surgery. The few visits have been very helpful in terms of evaluation, getting some new exercises and also getting some accurate measurements. I found out yesterday that I had listed some wrong numbers on knee bending; I'd like to apologize for the mistake and also post the right numbers.
I know that a straightened leg would be translated to 0 degree, as the extended line of femur would be aligned with the tibia.
However what I misunderstood was that while bending knees, the maximum level, i.e., foot heel touching butt would not mean 180 degrees. Assuming that wrongly as 180, I had guessed my numbers as 170 and 160 for my right and left legs, which are incorrect.
I would imagine doing 180 degrees knee bending would not look normal! cause for that to happen, tibia has to further get aligned with femur, beyond the heel touching butt.
The correct numbers for my right and left knee bending degrees are (measured by the PT as) 140 and 133, respectively.
I asked the PT what would be the maximum level in degrees. He did not give me a number; perhaps because it's subjective and may depend on the size of the thighs, etc.
I will soon update my list of exercises to Version 3 (most updated so far is version 2.1 on page 12 of my diary) with some new exercises I learned from the yesterday visit.
I finally read through your entire diary SNC ... Inspiring, man! Your diary will be a great help to the future CLL'ers to come. I look forward to following the rest of your journey.
Quote from: InFullStryde on November 25, 2020, 01:16:47 AMI finally read through your entire diary SNC ... Inspiring, man! Your diary will be a great help to the future CLL'ers to come. I look forward to following the rest of your journey.
Thanks IFS for reading my diary. I am glad you found it helpful. The credit mainly goes to you, cause as I said before, I read the first few weeks of your diary right before the surgery and that helped me a lot in planning for the surgery; and I decided to write this diary as a way of returning the favor.
Note: I think weekly updates make more sense (than daily updates) during consolidation. I still list all the days; just in case someone would like to search for a certain day. E.g., searching for "112" would hopefully help better with pointing at the post with the updates related to Day 112.
Day 124 Post-op (Mon., Nov. 23) - Consolidation Day 43
Day 125 Post-op (Tue., Nov. 24) - Consolidation Day 44
Day 126 Post-op (Wed., Nov. 25) - Consolidation Day 45
Day 127 Post-op (Thurs., Nov. 26) - Consolidation Day 46
Day 128 Post-op (Fri., Nov. 28) - Consolidation Day 47
Day 129 Post-op (Sat., Nov. 28) - Consolidation Day 48
Day 130 Post-op (Sun., Nov. 29) - Consolidation Day 49
Day 131 Post-op (Mon., Nov. 30) - Consolidation Day 50
Exercises: I have continued to do the stretching exercises I posted in my dairy (three times per day). I'll soon post the updated list of exercises (will call it Version 3. Version 2.1 is the latest so far that appears on page 12 of my diary).
Just a summary of dates: I started distraction on Day 10 post-op. I was done with 8cm distraction in 72 days; most likely a record, thanks to 19 days of 1.33 mm distraction days (5 days from Day 10 to Day 14 and 14 days from Day 48 to Day 61). Finishing the distraction phase early, had its pros and cons; i.e., it made my Day 48 to Day 61 more painful, but also allowed me to have more recovery days since post-op.
Updates:
I have continued to see improvement in my gait, and daily activities, in terms of strength and flexibility. For example I can now put on and take off my socks and pants while standing on one leg unassisted, and switching between legs. I know for a normal person it's not a big deal, but for me, this was not easy even a week ago.
Like last week I continued to walk 3 miles per day in a nearby park in addition to walks in the house or outside to run errands. My phone shows that my walks overall range between 4 to 6 miles per day, with the avg. standing at 5 miles per day.
I still suffer from the numbness on my left tibia. Those who followed my diary know that I am in the quest to be back to normal by Day 180. I have less than 50 days now. I know it's very unlikely I would feel normal by Day 180, but at least I could try making daily activities like running, etc. look normal.
Another update: I had lost a lot of leg muscle post-op, but now my calves look normal to me. My weight is around 140 pounds which is almost the same as pre-surgery. However since I am almost 8cm taller, I expect to gradually go towards 150, as I get my gluteus (butt) muscles back and gain more callus.
I had a video of my walk/gait taken (on Sunday the 29th) as promised to some guys here. I was not at my best, cause I almost fell off a side pedestrian curb, and hurt my left [hip area, close to where the nails are]; not major, but one may see an impact on how I walked on that Sunday. I did the video anyway, cause I was not sure when would be next time to have a friend available to take a video. I'll post it as soon as possible.
This evening, on Monday the 30th, I feel almost recovered, with no pain on the nails spot.
What's your armspan??
Nice update SNC, I'm glad your gait is improving I remember I still had a small limp to my gait around this time in your journey, I'd say a week or two more of practicing your gait in front of a mirror would fix the walking funny issue. Yikes out of all places the hip /: lol you'll be fine and get back on track soon bro! I don't know about the jogging normal at 6 months mark though, but best of luck! 
my jogging is still waddley but I can definitely jog for a couple miles at a very respectable pace now .. I think it's the nails making it look or move unnatural.
Quote from: Movie on December 01, 2020, 03:43:12 PMNice update SNC, I'm glad your gait is improving I remember I still had a small limp to my gait around this time in your journey, I'd say a week or two more of practicing your gait in front of a mirror would fix the walking funny issue. Yikes out of all places the hip /: lol you'll be fine and get back on track soon bro! I don't know about the jogging normal at 6 months mark though, but best of luck! my jogging is still waddley but I can definitely jog for a couple miles at a very respectable pace now .. I think it's the nails making it look or move unnatural.
Thanks Movie,
I had asked a couple times what Dr. M. thought the fastest time to recovery could be. He always mentioned this patient of his who could be back to normal in 6 months. I never asked exactly what normal meant. I just assumed whatever it was, for a crazy person like me, I have to beat that! Dr. M. keeps telling me it's not a race or competition, but for me, the whole life is about making records. It makes me feel good when I do something exceptional. I don't get devastated when I lose, but I will try my best to be the best.
For this CLL challenge, I have put almost all my attention and energy and I wanna see if I could convince Dr. M. that I recovered better than that patient. I also understand the notion of fastest in recovering from the CLL surgery may be subjective. In fact, Movie (you) could be the best of all CLL'ers overall, but Dr. M. mentions this other patient and I wanna win that game 
I know you and others may laugh at my silly stuff! I know what I say may sound very stupid In any case I am very happy so far with everything. I can't believe this COVID thing with all its nastiness and tragedies it brought, let me go for this CLL challenge much more easily.
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