Posted by DarrenG
on January 25, 2010
‘What a difference a day makes’ are lyrics from a well known song and never have they rung more true for me than over the last 24hrs.
Yesterday I blogged about my op and my rather optimistic hopes for my post op mobility. Last night I was sat on the settee quite relaxed and as bedtime approached I got up and, with the aid of crutches, made my way to the stairs.
The moment I got up my leg started to throb badly and as I left the lounge I felt a severe chill and started to shiver. This wasn’t just a slight chill, it was a full on, teeth chattering and body shaking uncontrollably type shiver.
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Posted by DarrenG
on August 28, 2009
Day1
I don’t think I’ve mentioned in any of my previous musings the great support and advice I have received from a Yahoo Group set up for those of us going through this procedure. These fixators are commonly used for complex fractures and not just leg lengthening.
The group allowed me to ask all those questions that you either never get time to ask or never occur to ask when you have the brief facetime with your surgeon and meant that I was far better prepared than I would otherwise have been, had suitable clothing at hand and knew exactly what to expect. As mine is a full length femoral frame the top ring is a half ring, I have seen pictures and know that. But on my last pre-op appointment a junior doctor showed me a femoral frame with the aforementioned half-ring and told me to ignore that, she passed it off as a carrying handle for the fixator as it was for demo purposes, you couldn’t make it up could you!
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Posted by DarrenG
on August 28, 2009
My op last Friday went ahead as planned and 6 days later (yesterday) I was released home. I now sport a rather gruesome looking femoral ilizarov fixator frame worth a cool £6k!
It’s taking some major adjustments of course and it still very early days but I’m doing my very best to remain positive. I had the Op 9am Friday morning which took 6hrs and arrived on the ward at 4.30pm. Saturday was spent in bed but Sunday I was walking to the shower using a frame which is amazing progress given the operation.
The frame itself has 4 rings and stretches from high on my hip to my knee. Mid-way is the adjustment section with 4 long threaded bolts that will be used for the lengthening procedure which begins next Tuesday. This is simple, each adjuster is turned a set number of times every day to achieve 1mm distraction per day. As I have 25mm of bone to grow it should take a month if the bone grows at the expected 1mm/day. We get shown what to do on Tuesday and then it is down to us to do at home each day!
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