Quote from: questpeanut on May 26, 2021, 06:53:56 PMThanks for writing your diary.
I was wondering how much were the costs of surgery and physical therapy?
Surgery for Precice, both femurs, is around $70k and PT at Sinai Hospital I think is around an additional $6k. Would recommend emailing Dr Assayag's team to get an exact quote.
If you have private health insurance, its worth asking them what their policy is around physical therapy. Some insurances will cover PT (typically for a set number of visits) if the provider is in-network, without any need for prior authorization. I'd also recommend asking them about their policy around home health aides/private duty nurses as well.
There's 2 other physical therapists in the area who were formerly part of Sinai's PT team - one of them works at another practice and accepts select insurances, and another works independently (self-pay) and can come to your home provided you live within an acceptable distance, so those are two more options you can ask Dr Assayag about and get quotes from as well.
Precice 2.2 Diary - Baltimore w/ Dr Assayag (April 2021)
Update - I've distracted 4.5 cm on left leg, 4.2 on right
Pain - I've felt very little to no pain over the last week.
There's definitely more stiffness and tightness, especially in my quads, and I'm very stiff and uncomfortable in the mornings, but that's about it. The only other pain I feel is when I'm stretching my quads or during PT, but that sort of pain is short-lived and goes away as soon as I stop stretching.
Recently, to relieve the discomfort from tightness in the morning, I've been taking hot baths as soon as I wake up. Soaking in the hot water really, really helps me feel normal again, and I do a lot of stretching as well - so, keeping my legs straight and pushing them against the tub to stretch my hamstrings, I try to stretch my calves by doing this modified calf raise stretch, I do a lot of knee bending, and I try to sit pretzel style in the tub as well (I can't bend my knees as much anymore so I can't do this stretch that well, but I still try). I feel like I enjoy stretching in the water more than on land now, and I feel like I'm able to push myself more in the water than on land, so I might try to spend more time in the pool.
Things are starting to feel different now that I've distracted this much. My legs definitely look longer to me, and they feel very new/strange! I feel like I have less control over them, since I'm used to them being shorter.. it's very interesting.
Flexibility - I don't think I've lost a significant amount of range of motion yet in any of my muscles, but again, quads are getting tighter, I'm starting to feel my hamstrings get tighter, and I think my hips aren't as loose as they were before. But the amount I've lost isn't serious or severe yet, so I'm continuing to distract at 1mm/day. One thing I've noticed is that my left IT band, or basically the side of my left thigh, is pretty sensitive and can start being painful pretty quickly if I stretch it in the wrong way or do something to make it mad. I've noticed that using the exercise bike can anger it - lately every time I use the bike, the next day the side of my thigh becomes really painful any time I try to move my leg, and I have to wrap it with an ACE wrap for the whole day until it calms down.
ACE wraps have been really helpful throughout this process too. Sometimes my knees can be tight and painful, or the side of my thigh as I mentioned above. Compression with the wrap really helps to relieve the pain/tension.
Holy crap, it really feels like 1-2 weeks ago you began your LL journey. I'm happy to hear you're having a painless experience, keep it up!!
Good luck on the last ~1 cm!!! You got this!
Quote from: PerfectBody on May 30, 2021, 02:59:46 PMHoly crap, it really feels like 1-2 weeks ago you began your LL journey. I'm happy to hear you're having a painless experience, keep it up!!
Good luck on the last ~1 cm!!! You got this!
Thanks @PerfectBody and right back at you!! You can do this.
And yup, time flies! I started the diary a month into distraction so that definitely skews things, but still, I don't know where the time has gone/how I'm already at 4cm :O
Update - we're at ~ 4.9 cm on the left leg and ~ 5.4 cm on the right (i accidentally switched the measurements of the legs in last post)
We're slowing down to .75mm on the right leg for the next 2 weeks because the regenerate is not as dense on one of the sides. I'm going to focus on increasing calorie intake - work has been pretty busy these last few weeks and I tend to eat less when that happens, so I wonder if that's the reason.
Both legs are still a little off from each other in terms of length, all due to the fact that I accidentally lengthened one of them more than the other, which I talked about in an earlier post. The plan is to even them out at the end, since slowing down one of the legs now just to even them out could risk premature consolidation.
In terms of flexibility, weirdly I feel tighter on my left leg than my right, which has more length. My biggest issue is quads, so I stretch them *a lot* throughout the day, as much as I can. My left hamstring is also getting tighter, more than my right. I go to the pool more often now which is a huge help, especially since I enjoy stretching more in the water.
One of these days I'll post some links to all the things I've used throughout this process that I've found helpful, in case its of any use to anyone 
Nice job, ab608! You seem to be chugging right along at a good clip 👍; I might have missed this, but what’s your goal? Curious about how you’re dealing with the weight bearing limits of precice 2.2; how’s that going for ya? You able to get around ok?
Quote from: L8GrowthSpurt on June 10, 2021, 01:34:31 AMNice job, ab608! You seem to be chugging right along at a good clip 👍; I might have missed this, but what’s your goal? Curious about how you’re dealing with the weight bearing limits of precice 2.2; how’s that going for ya? You able to get around ok?
Thank you! For now my goal is 6.5 ish cm, but I'm going to monitor and see how I'm feeling - I might decide to go for less or more
Yup, I've been getting around fine so far. What makes it easy is definitely having my family with me - I'm super fortunate and grateful to have them. They help with all the big stuff like food and getting to/from appointments. We're also staying in a small apartment, so it's not hard to wheel around and do what I need to do.
How confident do you feel about the nail in your daily life? I'm terrified I'm going to bend it or break it lol. I'm 74 kg though.
Quote from: V21 on June 10, 2021, 12:59:41 PMHow confident do you feel about the nail in your daily life? I'm terrified I'm going to bend it or break it lol. I'm 74 kg though.
Haha, initially I was terrified too.. a week or so after surgery, my brother had to practically force me to get off the bed and practice transferring and start moving around/doing things. Once you get your transfers down, its really a piece of cake. What really helped me is getting a wheelchair where you can remove the armrests, which I think most wheelchairs do these days anyway. That makes it really easy to slide off and on things from the side of the wheelchair. All you have to do is use your arms and legs to push and slide off. I thought it'd take a lot of arm strength, but I have really weak arms and I can do it lol, so its really not too bad. I'm never really worried about breaking the nail. Before surgery, get your own wheelchair from Craigslist or something and practice all of your transfers wherever you'll be staying.
I'll put some links to Youtube vids I used to practice transferring, along with links of things I've used throughout the process, in a later post if that helps!
Thanks, this would be very helpful!
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