From New York
Starting Height: 171.5cm
Lengthening Goal- 7.0-8.5cm
Method External LON on Tibias
Monday, May 6th Flight Arrival
My flight landed at 3pm but due to an incident at the airport, I did not get out the terminal to meet Sunny until 5pm. I was surprised he was still waiting. He took me to the Enkay Residency where I stayed for the next 3 days. Cost is about $40 to $50 per day I believe.
My flight arrived at the New Delhi airport and Sunny came with a driver to pick me up and take me to the hotel. It is very hot in Delhi around this time of year, the average high is 110-120 F every single day. This drops down to 90F at nighttime.
I ordered room service food during my stay at the hotel for lunch and dinner. I had a chicken sandwich, chicken biryani, and grilled cheese sandwich during my stay. For water, you can either order additional bottles of water through room service or boil your own using the tea/coffee maker in the room. Free breakfast is served from around 7:00-8:30am.
The breakfast selection is not great, but there is milk, cereal, some toast, and usually a couple of Indian dishes which changes everyday. The good thing is that you can request eggs to order free of charge so that makes the free breakfast much better. There are English magazines and newspapers which you can read while you eat your breakfast.
As you know, power outages are frequent in India but the generator at the hotel kicks in almost instantaneously so you have nothing to worry about. There is free wifi at the hotel.
For television, I was watching mostly MTV and an English comedy channel.
The staff at the hotel were very nice and helpful.
Tuesday May 7th- Consultation with Dr. Sarin
Sunny took me to meet with Dr. Sarin not at the hospital at one but at of the clinics he works in. Dr. Sarin asked if I had any questions for him and I really didn't. I had done my research coming into this so I already knew what to expect from leg lengthening and that I am definitely getting the operation done.
The consultation was therefore very brief, less than 5 minutes. Afterward, Sunny took me back to the hotel.
Wednesday May 8th-
Sunny took me to the only Bank of America in Delhi, which was about an hour drive from the hotel. We had a lot of trouble finding it even though we were in the right district. A lot of the buildings here don't have house numbers or exact street names so finding a place might mean having to ask the local cab drivers or policemen for directions along the way.
When we arrived though, disappointment ensued. It turns out the Bank of America location was for corporate accounts only and was useless to me. The rep who spoke with me on the phone apparently didn't know this when she gave me the address. Not to worry, however. I still believe the best way to get money is to send a wire transfer to Dr. Sarin and ask him to withdraw it for you. You can send a big lump sum once and have him withdraw it incrementally as you need funds. This way you avoid having to pay bank wire transfer fees multiple times.
I wired Dr. Sarin $15,000 before coming to India for the surgery and 3 months of accommodation.
I wired him an additional $3,500 and asked him to give me $1000 converted to rupees.. I anticipate staying in India for 5 months so I will need to pay him an additional $2,500 anyway during my 5 stay here in India. The extra $1,000 is spending money I've budgeted for additional food, supplies,etc.
I went by the guesthouse in the late afternoon to meet the current patients.
Thursday May 9th- Check into the Hospital
I checked into the hospital in the afternoon. The nurses there took blood and did a bunch of other tests. I had my x-ray but never had my starting height measured or the exact lengths of my legs measured. Here the workers wheel you around in a wheelchair even though I was perfectly capable of walking by myself.
The tv doesn't work in my room and the internet was down. Communication is a bit of an issue here as the nurses don't fully understand English. Some speak better English than others. If you want something, you must insist on it and ask for it repeatedly. Even if they tell you they are going to do something or if they say "okay", it doesn't mean anything. I guess that's the way things work around here. Don't be afraid to be persistent here if you need something important.
Friday May 10th
I woke up around 6:30am and was dressed for surgery. They put me on a stretcher and wheeled me to the waiting area outside the operation area. Dr. Sarin came around 8am and told me surgery was surgery for 9. I had to sign several waivers before they took me into the operation room. The operation area was very cold. I was still awake while I lied on the operation table.
They put a catheter in my left hand. They didn't give me any signal before I passed out. The next thing I know I woke up about 4 hours later in the waiting area outside the operation area. I noticed the penis catheter on me and the bag of urine by my bedside.
I felt like vomiting and they gave me a small bucket. This is normal as the general anesthesia wears off. After about 30 minutes after i woke up, I was transferred back to my room in the hospital.
I initially did not feel any pain from the surgery. All I focused on was keeping my ankles at 90 degree angles by sticking pillows in front of the bed post and pressing my feet on them while I keep my legs straight.
You are going to be lying on your back for the entire time. The spinal epidural analgesia is going to render your legs pretty much immobile. The food at the hospital is horrible. It is vegan and the selection repeats after 2-3 days. The takeout menu was also vegan.
I would suggest asking for a menu of local take-out places. I ate mostly dahi (plain) yogurt, banana, cornflakes and milk at the hospital. The rest of the food items I did not have the appetite to eat.
I did not get my appetite back until after my second day after surgery.
I needed to use the bathroom for #2 around the 4th day after surgery. Th ey bring you a wheelchair type device with a hole in the seat and a pan below. I was very constipated and wasn't able to go even though i felt a huge pressure in my stomach. Quite uncomfortable, but this subsided.
Even when I moved back to the guesthouse I wasn't able to do #2 properly until about 6-7 days after my surgery. I think this is due to lying on my back all day in bed. The lack of physical movement affects the bowel movement.
Tuesday, May 14th- Discharge from hospital
Sunny picked me up from the hospital and took me to the guesthouse.I felt a lot of pin cutting in my legs when they picked me up from the minivan and carried me to the bed in my room.
I hated the external frames from beginning. You can not achieve a natural sleeping position while having them on and you feel sort of disabled. Obviously you cannot stand on your own so you will be bed ridden or sitting down during the entire day and night. This can be mentally draining.
Thursday May 30th
Xray- Left: 1.1cm Right: 1.6cm
Amount turned: 1.2cm
It looks like the callus on my right leg is denser than my left leg. It also looks like my left leg has some pin loss. The reason why the actual amount distracted can be higher than the amount turned is due to two reasons:
there is an initial gap of a couple millimeters after the initial fracture at surgery
The x-ray measurement is not 100% accurate
At this point, I am not exactly sure if my left leg has any pin loss because I do not know what the initial gap was on my left leg. If it was close to 0mm, then it means I don't have any pin loss since I turned 1.2cm and got 1.1cm. If my left leg had the same gap as my right leg then it means there is a 0.5cm difference between the two which is quite a lot at this point.
However, all this is speculative. The next x-ray, when I am at 2.5cm should be much more useful to see how much pin loss I have.
Tuesday June 4th
1.7cm
I have been turning at 1mm/day. My goal is to continue this up until 3-4cm and adjust depending on how my callus looks like and how my muscle feels. I take a muscle relaxant almost every day and sometimes painkillers.
I haven't had any major striking pain. However, the pain I did have were persistent nagging pain, kind of like a really bad shin split or a muscle cramp in the calves.
The days are pretty much identical here. I spend time watching movies/tv shows on my computers, reading, and learning about how to build a web business. The days blend in with one another here. I sleep a lot while I am here. I go to bed around 10-11pm and wake up around 8am for breakfast.
After breakfast, I usually go back to bed from 9am-12pm and basically just wait for lunch at around 1:30pm. Even though the days seem really boring and mundane, time passes by really quickly here and that is the general consensus with the other patients. I think this is because in the back of our minds we subconsciously want to get this leg lengthening phase over with and continue on living our normal lives, so our mind find ways to pass the time.
It is kind of like working at a job you hate. Time goes by slowly if you look at the clock everyday waiting to leave, but suddenly one day you realized you've been working there for 2 years and wondered where all the time went. The food here get here gets monotonous very quickly so I order food once or twice a week. Each delivery costs me about $10 and lasts me for 2 meals.
I get physiotherapy six days a week. The session I have are relatively short but I will demand to have more physio as I get deeper into my lengthening phase. There are five exercises/stretches during the sessions:
The physiotherapist massages my feet and presses on it to get a stretch my ankles and my calf muscles
lying on back straight leg raises
lying on side straight leg raises
I lie on my back and the physiotherapist keeps my legs straight and pushes my thighs towards my body
Thursday, June 6th.
1.9cm
I have been in India for exactly one month as of today.
My physical therapy is getting longer which I like. I will be starting to stand in 3 days using the walker with my arms to support some of the weight. I actually started standed when I was a 0.5mm but stopped when the physiotherapist said this was not advisable.
I intend to prevent or reduce ballerina foot as much as possible. I wear sandals with straps which keeps my feet at a right angle to my legs. I believe standing and walking is the best way to restore strength and flexibility back to the muscles, tendons, and bones in the legs. Just as importantly I believe it minimizes ballerina foot
Friday June 14th
2.6cm
I am taking 3 muscle relaxer pills a day, and a painkiller during the night to help with sleeping.
Wednesday June 19th
3.0cm
So far so good. No complications yet (knock on wood). Calves and ankle muscles are starting to feel a bit more tight. Still going at a rate of 0.833mm (5 turns) per day.
Frame not fully weight bearing. Twisted rods near ankles. Dont stand for too long at a time
Moving out of old guesthouse end of this month either to new guesthouse or hotel
Friday June 28th
3.7cm
Xray results
I've turned 3.7cm and have 3.4cm and 3.5cm on my right and left legs respectively.
If you look at my x-ray, it appears there are two distinct gaps on each legs. However, the doctor said that this was just due to the way the bone is broken--- it isn't a straight horizontal line. He said this was actually a good thing as it increases the surface area and will help with recovery. I still don't completely understand so if anybody could offer additional insights into this I would appreciate it.
The physiotherapist suggest I increase turning to 1mm/day to avoid preconsolidation and the doctor agreed.
Thursday July 4th
4.4cm
Flexibility in both legs are still good. No ballerina yet but I can feel my calves getting tighter.
There has been some politics going on at the guesthouse lately. We have a new guesthouse manager and one of the physiotherapists was let go due to complaints. The patients are still split between the guesthouse and hotel with about 7-8 patients at each location based on what I've been told. We will be moving to a new guesthouse in August since our lease expires at the end of July.
August 6th
Actual lengthened: ~5.6-5.8cm
Amount Turned: 6.8cm
I have been turning 0.833/day but Dr. Sarin told me to turn at least 1mm/day for the next 10 days and have another xray. I am also stopping my 500mg daily calcium supplementation. Lastly, I will be standing only 10-15minutes twice a day whereas I was standing 20-25 minutes before. The point is to avoid preconsolidation.
Because I have almost lengthened 6cm, preconsolidation risk is now less than at the beginning However, the callus on my right fibula looks awfully dense and my previous roomate did have his fibula preconsolidate at around the 6cm mark. Better to be safe than sorry. At the rate I am going, I should have my frames off at the end of August so roughly 3 more weeks to go. Very excited to get these frames off and start walking with crutches!
The good news is I have essentially little to no ballerina. Ballerina is one of the biggest secondary complication here.
Author
Topic: DEM - External Tibas - Dr. Sarin - 2013 - From New York to India (Read 27287 times)