@BilateralDamage
I'm sorry about that, I didn't see your post!
I'm 5'4" originally and I'm 24. I've been called "short" as far as I could remember and it's definitely affected my confidence and caused me to be insecure in certain areas of my life. I know some girls don't care as much for height (or at least they don't voice it), but if I see a taller guy when I'm with a gf, I'll usually have insecure thoughts about them wanting to leave me for the other guy, just because of his height alone. I also close myself off from girls who are my height or appear to be slightly taller because I figure that with heels they'll tower over me... when in reality I'm sure some of them won't mind at all, so it's more a mental issue than anything. Anyway, I figured it's time that I get out of that mindset and do something about all of it, which is why I pursued this surgery. I did a lot of weight lifting, for about a year, before going ahead with this and stretch every single time after a workout to increase my flexibility. Before I came to have my surgery, I was able to squat around 265lbs, dead lift 295lbs, and bench press 175lbs. I could touch my palms to the ground if I tried hard enough with both legs straight. I worked very hard at this because I saw how much Dr. Guichet wanted his patients to be in excellent shape before lengthening and thought it was a great idea that made a ton of sense.
Another thing that really pushed me are my leg deformities, which were brought to light when I saw Dr. Rozbruch for a consultation. They told me that I'd probably come back later either way for surgery, due to the combination of my bow leg, rotational, and flat feet deformities, and that this would delay having operations for joint replacements and things like that by 10s of years. I've always had problems with my lower back/hip and figured that one of my legs might be a little off... so it was nice to confirm my suspicions with a qualified team of doctor/physicians. Knowing that this surgery would also benefit my life in the long-run definitely sweetened up the pot and really pushed me ahead.
@rickybobby
Thanks for letting me know about that. I don't see consolidating too quickly as a problem if you're increasing the amount lengthened to compensate? I'm hoping that my bones are consolidating at a good rate as well, that way I can continue with 1.32mm of distraction instead of having to go down to 1mm. It would speed up things by 15 days, which would be great for me... since I could use that time to heal and get back to as close to where I was before the surgery.
I just emailed Dr. Rozbruch and his team today to see if it'd be possible to have an earlier appointment than April 3rd, that way I will have a better idea of what's going on and if my suspicions are valid before it's too late. I feel like I'm healing way too fast, so it may not be lengthening as much as I think... or maybe I'm underestimating my age and all the training that I did before the operation? I'll find out soon enough.
I have been able to do nearly every stretch in the PT booklet without any help and reach my previous level of flexibility, surprisingly... a few days ago I thought this would've all been impossible, but persistence really pays off and if there's anything to take away from this study, it's that you've really got to push yourself to stretch! Even if you're not doing a lot, just do what you can.
My biggest thing problem are my knees, which appear to be somewhat tighter than the rest of my muscles. I'm massaging them and constantly stretching them now, hopefully they'll get better, but it's nothing too serious.
I'll write a quick summary of the past 7 days for anyone interested:
May 20th - Lengthening surgery. Anesthesia/sedative knocked me right out, felt no pain. Woke up to catheter being put in, body was still numb from anesthesia/sedative/epidural. Ate a ton of food and asked for more. I feel that just gorging is really important because your body is in total shock from what's going on and the food will help provide energy for it to be able to handle what's going on.
May 21st-23rd - Ate a lot of foods, pretty much anything I could get my hands on. Slept a ton. *I cannot stress eating as much as much as much as you can and resting.* Received visits from physicians and doctors who checked in on and me and removed my dressings. They also taught me how to use the Precice 2.0 device which is incredibly simple. I also went to my apartment here in the city on the 23rd.
May 24th - Woke up to a ton of pain, took two 7.5mg Norcos every 3-4 hours. Totally underestimated how bad things got and lost hope as to how fast I could recover. Could barely move my legs and did my best to stretch whenever I could... probably spent most of my time sleeping and a total of 1 hour combined of stretching and moving. Went to the bathroom for a bowel movement for the first time and succeeded, but the weight bearing was hell on Earth. I'm still scared that I bent my nails, since they can only hold 30lbs each, but I believe I should be ok.
May 25th - Woke up with legs tights and pain at all times, so I emailed Dr. Rozbruch's assistant about feeling major pain. They prescribed me with another pain killer, 10mg of OxyContin, which I proceeded to take with the Norcos that I received from the hospital's prescription. Did my best to stretch, but slept most of the day, probably spent an hour or two stretching and the rest laying down/sleeping.
May 26th - Felt a lot better, proceeded to spend more time stretching... probably 3 to 4 hours now? Slept most of the day still.
I'd like to note that each day I had at least 3 meals (each meal was very heavy in protein, moderate in carbs and fat), multiple types of vitamins (multi-vitamin, fish oil, l-lysine, calcium supplement, among others that were given to me by the hospital), a lot of water (drank 4 bottles or so per day), went to the bathroom at least once per day for bowel movement, but multiple times for peeing, lengthened 1.32mm per day with Precice 2.0, and did my best to stretch and move my legs whenever able, I would try to weight bear just a very tiny bit here and there... but nothing crazy.
May 27th - I feel nearly 100%. My legs were tight when I woke up, but I just stretched them and massaged them and everything was ok, there wasn't really any pain from the femurs being broken. I can pretty much do everything myself now... transfer myself to the wheelchair without help, go to the bathroom, go to the kitchen, things like that. I'm confident that I could do a bit more walking with the help of the walker... but I don't want to take the risk due to low weight bearing ability from my tiny rods.
The recovery today was so drastic that I actually contacted Dr. Rozbruch for fear that I wasn't lengthening enough and I'm trying to schedule an earlier check-up. I still don't know if that's the case, but I will update the moment I hear back. If I really was lengthening what I thought I was and still able to recover so quickly, I credit it to the major amount of rest, good diet, and stretching that I was able to do. When I first started my lengthening I thought it would've taken me at least 1 month to do what I'm currently doing now. I've also reduced my pain killer dose by about half and feel perfectly fine. Only pain is from the soreness or muscles being tired from me working them/stretching them.
If it was all a sham, then I plan on doubling my efforts at stretching, as well as increasing my lengthening with the Precice to properly lengthen my legs. I was really disheartened over the past few days to see that the device malfunctioned for some patients and was not as effective as they thought. I don't understand how it couldn't have been corrected by increasing the amount lengthened to combat the bone consolidation... so if anyone could explain it to me, I'd really appreciate it. I've been on pain killers the whole time, so I don't feel like my brain is working at full capacity right now. I'll be re-reading Amatan's diary on old forum to see if there's anything I can learn.. now that my head is clearer today with the reduction in pain killers.
If there's anything I missed, please let me know. I welcome all and any questions. Thank you so much for your support, I look forward to keeping you all updated!
It's going to be so worth it for all of us!
