Posted by DarrenG
on January 24, 2010
Friday morning I had my op and the frame is now history. After a bit of faffing about I was wheeled into theatre at 9am and so keen were they to get it off that my consultant had begun unbolting the frame whilst I was still in the anaesthetic room being prepped!
I was lying there with an anaesthetist popping a cannula into my left hand, one theatre technician applying the heart monitor patches and another theatre technician spraying my leg with a liberal coating of disinfectant.
And whist this was going on, my consultant breezed in, shook my hand, said ‘now we’ll find out if it has well and truly set’ and then proceeded to wield the spanner.
Not the most encouraging of comments!! I can remember thinking, “I wish this bloody anaesthetic would hurry up’ and that was that.
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Posted by DarrenG
on October 07, 2009
On Tuesday I finally saw my consultant to check on the length of my leg and bone growth.
I was delighted to be told that the leg was physically at the right length (+25mm) now and I would therefore not need to continue with the daily nut turning spanner exercise. The bone however has not quite met growth expectations having grown only about 15mm since the surgical fracture.
Not unusual I was told and so I am am now waiting for it to grow to close the gap of approximately 1cm. To that end I have been told to move to using one crutch only and fully weight bear on the right leg, this encourages bone growth.
I’ve started doing just that today but it’s incredibly hard work. Two factors being the mental block that tells you not to put all your weight on the leg and the other being the leg muscles, unused to weight, which scream at you every time you apply pressure and trigger the mental process that questions whether you should be doing this at all!
I’ve a review in three weeks and if I can help speed up the bone growth by walking then walk I shall, that and the gallons of milk, multi-vitamins and orange juice I’m being fed should do the job!
Posted by DarrenG
on September 03, 2009
Yesterday I had my appointment with the Consultant to start the leg ‘distraction’ phase or leg ‘lengthening’ as we might better know it.
It’s very simple. The middle of the frame has two rings held together with four long threaded bolts and nuts. The nuts have a special four sided head marked with 1 to four dots. Four times a day I have to grab my two 10mm spanners, undo the lock nut, turn the special nut one quarter turn and then lock it off. Then repeat for the other three. This whole process is repeated every 4hrs.
In theory each full turn equates to 1mm of lengthening. The idea being that the bone ends are kept just far enough apart that they continue to grow towards each other but not so far apart that the bone gives up the battle and of course not so close that they actually knit. Over time new bone is grown and the femur is lengthened.
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