Thanks for the update. I feel ya on the discomfort after lengthening sessions. Keep up the energy and dedication!
Thanks, you keep pushing too!
Hey BTM - Thanks for the detailed diary. Very helpful. You go back home and work already? Your gait on the last vid looked pretty damn good! Hope you’re doing well. Stay strong
I've been working since week 3 and I just got home.
Hey BTM, I am following your diary and I can say that it is a great collaboration for this forum, especially for me that I am planning to perform LL in a few years with Dr. Debiparshad, I hope you have a good recovery and that everything will go well by the end of the process. 
I would like to emphasize that your videos are great for us to know how your LL process is going.
Good luck with everything. I will try and post videos when I feel like there's something interesting to show. I don't know if I'm going to improve my gait much over the next two months though tbh.
Surgery Day +27, Lengthening Day 24 (+1mm, 24.66mm total)Sleep was so bad last night that I simply gave up on sleeping after just four hours in bed. Even though I took a Norco right before going to bed, I basically woke up once every single hour and after four hours I was fully awake, hungry, and still super tired. I felt like I spent the whole night tossing and turning, trying to sleep in every single position but not being able to get rid of the pain no matter what. After getting up and going to the bathroom, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I did my morning routine then returned and sat on the bed. My brain wasn’t functioning very quickly, so all I could do is consume some mindless entertainment, and hoping that I would be tired enough to want to take a nap at some point. After the fiasco yesterday with the second Norco pill, I was not going to try taking a second pill again today. After watching TV for an hour and still feeling like crap in my legs, I decided to take an acetaminophen and eat breakfast. Sometimes I feel like the distraction phase is just one giant experiment with different pain medications.
After breakfast I was feeling a bit better. I watched some more TV to distract myself, but it didn’t really work. After a short while I was ready to do my first lengthening session of the day. I did a full set of PT exercises and stretches. Surprisingly all of the previous pain I had when exercising is gone now. My original left knee area pain has been gone for days, and today the pain I was feeling around the bone cut area over the last few days is gone as well. I can do all of my exercises normally, although everything is a little tighter than before. I do have one new type of pain, but it only happens when I do the quad stretch too far on my left side. I think my knee has a little bit of pain when that happens, though it feels quite different than the previous knee pain (pain from using my muscles before vs pain from stretching now.) I didn’t have a lot of energy while doing the exercises and stretching, but I got them done.
Next I used the ERC on each leg. I felt a bit tired even holding the ERC over my quad. I didn’t feel anything in my legs immediately after using the ERC, but after I had walked around a bit and set the ERC down, I noticed that I was feeling a little bit of the uncomfortable lengthening aftereffect. I sat down on the bed and massaged my legs, though it didn’t help much. I was hoping that it would just go away soon. I played some music on my laptop, but that didn’t help my mood much. I did start to get a little sleepy though, and I repositioned my pillow so I was in more of a reclining position. That made me fall asleep for just over an hour, which was nice. Unfortunately I wasn’t really any more refreshed when I woke up, and my legs had the exact same level of stiffness and uncomfortableness that they did just before I fell asleep. I would have to try my old trick - playing games.
Fortunately this worked well. I was distracted and forgot all about my pain and it lasted past when I stopped playing. At this point it was barely noon and I was already starving even though I ate a big breakfast. I think lengthening and building new bones definitely uses more calories than normal, and this is definitely something I can observe from my diet. However, painkillers and being in pain definitely affects my appetite and mood as well. Since I was hungry, I got up to use the bathroom and heat up some food. While walking around the Airbnb I felt pretty good even though I didn’t have any painkillers and my legs weren’t really warmed up. I thought about taking a walk outside later. Today’s high was in the single digits Celsius (~40 F) so it would be pretty cold, but I figured it wouldn’t be a problem to take a walk anyway since I could just wear my jacket out. It’s still warmer than it would be back home and I don’t know how much public walking I’m willing to do in a densely populated area where I might run into someone I know. Also, if it hasn’t already snowed back home, I’m sure the snow will accumulate soon. It’s one thing to fully weight-bear on the Stryde nails, but I don’t think any doctor would recommend walking outdoors as exercise on icy sidewalks lol.
After lunch I decided to try and get some work done. I didn’t do any work at all yesterday, so I would have to try and do some today so next week won’t be that hectic, especially with a mid-week flight. First though, I would stretch a little. I don’t think it would hurt to increase my daily stretching. I’m not sure if I currently am stretching too little, but I do feel like it’s getting harder to stretch my hamstrings as far as I used to be able to. Fortunately I can still get a good angle, but I think I can barely hook my fingers over my toes now. While stretching I realized I could watch some football, so I turned the TV on and let it play in the background while I finished my stretches, then continued to work a bit. Unfortunately, the whole time I was trying to work I was distracted. My legs were very uncomfortable, in the same way that I feel an aftereffect from lengthening. Pretty much nothing was able to get rid of the feeling so I just suffered and worked and I was kind of tired and sleepy too, but didn’t feel like going to sleep.
Eventually I decided to do another set of stretches, take acetaminophen, and then do my outdoor walk. Since my legs didn’t feel as good today as they did yesterday (both indoors and outdoors) I realized I wouldn’t be able to walk as far, so I focused on my gait instead. I did two shorter laps on the main sidewalk without going into the next neighborhood down. One interesting thing I noticed was that my left leg was indeed still weaker than my right leg. The main reason I didn’t notice it before was because I could walk on it without the cane and it felt about the same as my right leg. However, when I was practicing my gait, I found that my entire body swung to the left when I was fully weight bearing on my left leg, but when I was partially supporting the weight on my cane, my body didn’t swing because I was counterbalancing the weakness with the cane. My body was distributing the weight so well I didn’t even notice. I think if I didn’t notice this and continued only using the cane on my left leg, I would eventually have an even bigger difference between my left and right leg. Therefore, for part of the walk I used the cane on my right side, and on my left side I would put my weight down while trying not to sway.
My left leg got tired pretty quickly though, which is good. I think what I’m doing probably beats out exercising in terms of workout efficiency and I know that fixing this issue will improve my gait. After that I just walked back to the Airbnb sloppily since I didn’t have enough muscle strength left to walk with a proper gait. Overall, I was much more tired than yesterday the whole time. I don’t know if it’s my legs that are weak or if I lack sleep, or one of the many other reasons that I could be weaker today, but regardless of the reason I pushed a bit and ended up walking half a mile (800m) in just under 20 minutes, so a 40 minute per mile pace. I walked my fastest yesterday (about 36 minutes per mile) even including slanted sidewalks and a longer distance, so both in terms of feelings and objective stats, I was weaker today.
When I got back inside I changed back into indoor clothing. The TV was still on so I did some stretches on the bed while watching football and then used the ERC on each leg. My legs still felt uncomfortable after the lengthening, but not to the point of pain. Still, the noise in the background was a great distraction. After that I lay in bed trying to get some work done while managing the pain in my legs. I planned to take a hot shower at night as a form of pain management. Then I began to feel very sleepy. Even though it was dinnertime, here was my chance to take a nap. I draped a towel over my legs as a blanket and then closed my eyes. As I had already started feeling it, I passed out quickly. I woke up a few times to adjust my legs, but I basically got a nap that was over two hours long. In fact, when I got up I was still sleepy and could have probably continued to sleep for a while, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to mess up my sleep routine too badly. My legs were very stiff, stuffy and uncomfortable when I woke up. Why is it that I can fall asleep with legs like this right now, but not in the middle of the night? My sleep was so solid that I had what felt like a continuous dream over the entire two hours.
As I got up, I hobbled over to the bathroom and then to the kitchenette. It was a bit late for dinner, but I was hungry so I heated up a ton of leftovers. I find it a bit crazy how hungry I have been every few hours, given how much I feel like I’m eating with every meal. But it also means that my food prep back at home was correct. I have a ton of healthy calories stored in my pantry and freezer back at home waiting for me to go back and enjoy without having to go outside. I think cooking will put me in a better mood as well, as I like to make my own food (since I work out.) After waking up from my overall grogginess, I did feel quite refreshed with that nap. Combined with my few hours of sleep last night and the nap earlier in the day I think I almost have a full day's worth of sleep. I’m not sure the biological recovery is the same as actually getting 8 hours of sleep, but it’s better than sleeping sporadically for 3 or 4 hours last night and not taking any naps.
While eating and watching YouTube, I realized that my legs weren’t as painful as when I had just woken up. It was almost like every morning, when my legs would be quite stiff when I had just awakened, but somehow always felt better after I had been up for a bit. I wasn’t going to complain about my legs feeling better though, but I had another lengthening to do before going to bed, which might tighten my legs up again. It was getting a bit late, so I decided to take a shower. The second shower was much easier than the first and I didn’t even really think much of it. My legs got tired sooner than last time, but I did go out for a walk today so that’s probably why. After drying off and changing into pajamas, I did a set of stretches on the bed. Surprisingly I thought that after taking a hot shower that I would be more limber and flexible, but this was not the case. I’m honestly feeling like I’m getting less and less flexible each day, which might be due to the lengthening, even though I’m not even at one inch yet. One inch of growth is probably worth more than one inch of loss in flexibility.
I finished the stretches, even though it was a little difficult. Then I lengthened each leg and put away the ERC. I felt a light aftereffect, but only on the left leg this time. I’m still assuming the right leg successfully lengthened though, since I don’t always get the aftereffect every time I lengthen. However, before this if I felt the uncomfortable aftereffect of lengthening at all it would have been on both legs. This is actually the first time I only felt it on one leg. At this point I figured I could go to bed. Even though it was late, if I slept now I would probably wake up way early the next morning, which is fine since the weekend kind of just flew by and I still need to catch up on work somehow. I took a Norco and then went to bed.
Surgery Day +28, Lengthening Day 25 (+1mm, 25.66mm total)Last night when I went to bed I wasn’t tired or sleepy. I tossed and turned for a bit since my legs felt stiff and at one point I was on my stomach and I lifted my left leg up but the blanket was stuck and it hurt my knee a bunch. I felt like the Norco I took wasn’t doing anything since I was in pain from that. Fortunately it wasn’t like this for too long since I somehow managed to fall asleep shortly afterwards. I remember waking up once in the middle of the night and looking at my watch, but aside from that I slept very well until my alarm went off. My watch data shows that my total sleep time was just shy of 6 hours out of 6.4 hours in bed and that I woke up only twice last night and both times were very brief. That's probably the best ratio I’ve had in quite a while. When I woke up I turned off the alarm and lay in bed for about the length of a snooze. I wasn’t tired or sleepy, but my legs were a bit stiff as usual and I was thinking that I could have slept more if my alarm didn’t go off. However, it was time to get up and start working.
I got up and walked to the bathroom or my morning routine. The first few steps were weak, but my legs quickly regained their strength as I got to the bathroom and stood for a while. I came back to the main room and I was already feeling okay in my legs. The Wifi was down in the Airbnb, but I tethered my work laptop to my phone and signed on. It didn’t look like anyone was looking for me yet, though I knew it would get very busy today so I needed to get a few things completed before then. I took my morning Xarelto, but no painkillers since I didn’t feel like I needed any yet. Then I proceeded to make and eat a dinner-sized breakfast, then got ready to start my exercise and stretch routines. After doing those, I lengthened both legs with the ERC. I didn’t really feel an aftereffect immediately in either leg, so I proceeded to focus on work for the rest of the morning.
About an hour later I realized that my legs were actually kind of feeling the lengthening aftereffect a little bit. They weren’t in pain, but uncomfortable enough to distract my focus. I decided to take an acetaminophen since it was still pretty early in the morning and I wouldn’t be going to PT until later in the afternoon and I would be clear to take more painkillers by then. I continued to work all morning, only taking a break when Ronnie from Dr. D’s office came to pick up the wheelchair and walker I borrowed from the office, which I was really thankful for since I did not have a rental car or an easy way to return them before leaving Las Vegas. I actually only used the wheelchair once to go like 10 feet the night I got out of the hospital, so I don’t I actually needed the wheelchair. The walker I did use for quite a while though, even when I was perfectly capable of just using the cane, since I felt safer with the walker.
While working all day, I occasionally took bathroom and snack breaks and each time I got up I felt a bit stiff, but while sitting in bed working my legs didn’t really feel that bad. I took an extra long break to do some exercises and the midday lengthening session. Everything was normal for this session, though I feel like half an hour after lengthening, the area in the back of my legs (opposite of the knee, between hamstrings and calves) was feeling a little tight. Sitting with my knees bent made that feeling go away, but I think I need to do more hamstring stretches in general to continue lengthening, or I will quickly lose flexibility. Finally, after a full day of meetings and trying to get work done at the same time, I had to sign off and get to PT on time. I took my painkillers and called a car and headed over quickly. This was my last day of PT in Vegas, so it was time to say goodbye to all the staff that have been working with me over the last month.
I entered PT and checked in at the front desk. Another new PT assistant was working today, but overall the place wasn’t as busy as last time, so he was able to help with all of the equipment I needed and I got through all my exercises pretty efficiently. I actually did many of them with more weight or resistance. For PT, I feel like I am much stronger than last week so I’m definitely gaining some more access to my leg muscles. Even when standing up from a sitting position, I was able to stand up from a very low bench, where my knees were bent 90 degrees while sitting. I don’t think I can do anything resembling a squat yet, but I also haven’t needed to do that. Overall I left PT in a good mood and feeling like I was improving. I was determined to walk to the pizza place nearby and order a pizza for takeout. However, I walked about 200 meters and then realized that I left my phone at PT, so I had to walk back and get it, then walk all the way to the pizza place. The pizza place was in the same direction as the 7-Eleven that I visited earlier in my journal, but a bit further of a walk. In total since I had to turn around I walked 0.6 miles (about 1km) when I should have walked 0.35 miles (600 meters.)
I arrived at the pizza place and the door was almost too heavy for me to pull open. However, I managed it and then went to the front to place an order. I got a large specialty pizza since it seemed pretty big. That way I should have some leftovers to eat for breakfast or lunch tomorrow. It took about 15 minutes for my pizza to finish cooking and then I called a car and waited another 5 or so minutes for that. While I was leaving I actually couldn’t push the front door all the way open with my cane in one hand and pizza in the other, but fortunately a waitress was nearby and rushed over to help me. That was probably the single moment that I needed the most help in public since the surgery. After that it was smooth sailing to get back to the Airbnb. Upon arriving and getting ready to eat I realized that the pizza I ordered was a thin crust. No wonder it seemed so light given the size of the box. Sadly I would not have any leftovers for tomorrow. I devoured the entire large pizza in about 10 minutes and honestly I’m not even 100% sure I was full, but I knew I probably wouldn’t need to eat for the rest of the night at least.
Afterwards, I got up to use the bathroom and realized that my legs were kind of dead. After resting for a few minutes and then eating, my legs finally stopped having to work hard, so they must have decided to go stiff. Maybe stiff legs aren’t as painful when resting. Regardless I wasn’t planning on doing much physical activity for the rest of the night except for the last lengthening. At this point I remembered that I still had quite a bit of work to catch up on since I would be very busy tomorrow and probably wouldn’t get any work done at all. I had a few hours so I continued to work. The Airbnb host had some friends over for some kind of party and they were playing a game that sounded like they needed to shuffle tiles every so often so it was quite loud when they did. I don’t think it’s Mahjong because they were speaking Spanish, but it sure sounded like it was. I just played some music to drown out their noise in my room. It wasn’t distracting to the point where I would lose focus on work, and even in that case it’s probably better to be distracted by noise than leg pain.
Finally, it was time for the last lengthening of the day on my last night in Las Vegas. I did a light set of exercises and a full set of stretches. The stretches felt extra hard, but I was in no rush so I waited a little longer between stretches. After that I lengthened each leg past the one inch mark. Time has passed by slowly, but it has also passed quickly. I can’t believe I’m at the one inch mark now! I feel like I should notice a difference in my height, and sometimes I think I do, but not to the point where I’m sure I’m taller. Maybe that will change when I return to a familiar environment, but I won’t know until I do. Both my legs were uncomfortable after lengthening, but I tried to relax for a little bit before it was time to go to bed. Eventually I popped a Norco and got ready to go to bed. Dr D’s office had called earlier and moved my appointment to first thing in the morning, so I would definitely have to wake up early. Since I’ve been waking up super early for work, it shouldn’t be a problem. I returned from the bathroom and turned off all the lights and went to sleep thinking excitedly about how I was finally about to go home.
Surgery Day +29, Lengthening Day 26 (+1mm, 26.66mm total)When I woke up I actually didn’t remember too much from how I slept the night before, but I did remember that sleep wasn’t too great. I was still pretty tired, but had been tossing and turning for the last 15 minutes fully conscious. When I checked my watch data, I saw that it took forever to fall asleep, I woke up for a while in the middle, and then when I last woke up just before 5:30 I couldn’t fall asleep again. In total for 5.1 hours in bed I slept for 4.4 hours. I got up to use the bathroom and decided to stay awake. I would actually have quite a few chances to nap later today. Unfortunately, I had some work to do and I didn’t want to take my Xarelto before 7am, so I worked for a while pre-dawn with no painkillers. It wasn’t too bad, since the act of waking up and sitting makes my legs less stiff somehow. Then my alarm for 7am went off and I took a Xarelto and acetaminophen.
I proceeded to do my leg exercises and stretching to get ready for an early lengthening. I felt okay with the workout, especially given how bad my rest was last night. I proceeded to run the ERC on each leg and hit the 26 mm mark. I then had some snacks and water, and browsed the morning news since I had a tiny bit of time to burn before heading to Dr. D’s office. Once it was time I called a car to head over to the clinic. I assumed the waiting area should be relatively empty today since it was so early in the morning and this was indeed the case. Everything was kind of like clockwork now, I went in and got my height and weight measured. I lost about 5 pounds in the last two weeks and it looked like I was a bit above 5’7” on the stadiometer, though I have some APT so I definitely am not able to stand at my full height. Next came the full set of x-rays, which were easier to take than last time. It’s not easy to stand or lay down and hold a certain position for the machine without feeling any pain. After that and answering all the basic questions, it was time to meet with the doctor.
Dr. D inspected my incisions and my gait. It looks like my incisions are healing up very nicely, but he was concerned about pigmentation in the scars and recommended a bleaching cream to try when I was further along in the scarring phase. He told me to avoid the sun on my scars the best I can since it can cause hyperpigmentation. He also cleared me for swimming, hot tubs, baths, etc. which I was very happy about since I have heard hot baths help a lot during the lengthening phase, especially when your knees are in pain. As for my gait, he also noticed that I swayed more when weight bearing on my left foot and said I needed to strengthen my hip abductors to reduce sway. Walking with the cane and compensating for the sway with the cane wouldn’t make it go away by itself. Aside from that, he said I was making good progress on my walk, but there were definitely other lengtheners who had better gait than me at this point. He also pointed out that I was taking less painkillers than the average lengthener at this point, but that I didn’t necessarily need to avoid taking painkillers, especially if I was feeling pain at PT, for example. He also said that I needed to be stretching constantly if I could, like doing reps with the resistance band while working, for example. He said that’s what the people who had the best gait did.
Next, for the x-rays they came out perfectly again. For the full leg x-ray, both sides were lengthened by exactly the same amount on the measuring tool. Both the front and lateral thigh x-rays showed callus growth on both sides, so I have clean growth on all four sides of both bones. The rate of callus growth is also good. Not so slow that I would have to slow lengthening and take more bone supplements, but not so fast that I’m at risk of premature consolidation. Really there’s nothing to complain about here. He mentioned that most people do not slow down after the first inch, but slowing down actually makes the process less painful since your soft tissue has more time to stretch and catch up with the bone growth. Slowing down costs time though, which is a valuable resource as well. I wonder if there is some point between 4-6 months after surgery, where both a fast lengthener and slow lengthener would be in the consolidation phase, that the slow lengthener catches up to the fast lengthener? Since consolidation by itself seems to make recovery faster. Who would actually be further along with consolidation and who would be more flexible? I would think that slowing down the rate of lengthening would slow you down on getting to consolidation, but lengthening slowly, you might be more flexible at the point of reaching 8cm than someone who lengthened fast, but maybe the person who lengthened fast would catch up on flexibility at some point further along when both people are the same number of days out from surgery.
For my lack of sleep, Dr. D said he could change my muscle relaxant to Valium and I could try Ambien as well. He also didn’t seem to be concerned about me taking Norco before sleeping. I just needed to send him a pharmacy back home to send the prescription to. I didn’t ask about any alternative forms of sleep therapy, and at this point I’m certainly willing to try what the doctor recommends. I will definitely be trying other methods to sleep though because not sleeping is just not going to work for me. Hopefully just being home would help my sleep, but I’m willing to take whatever helps me sleep. Also, I had completely forgotten to ask Dr. D if there was anything showing in the X-ray that might be reflective of the popping sound in my left femur, but he actually remembered this himself and told me that he looked closely at the left nail and there did not seem to be anything wrong with it. Since I had perfectly equal lengthening on both sides, that also means both nails should certainly be working correctly.
I also picked up the drugs that I ordered for the second month from the office. For my next set of x-rays, I got an x-ray order from Dr. D's team that I could bring into any radiology center to get the correct x-rays sent to the office, though apparently some places only take the order if it is directly faxed from the doctor. Also, there is no need to specifically find an EOS machine or worry about radiation apparently. EOS machines tend to be in children’s hospitals anyway, since they are more affected by X-ray radiation. For PT, I already had an idea of which PT I wanted to go to, so I would text that to Dr. D’s team later and they would also send that PT a referral and an order with all the exercise and stretch information that they needed to treat me. Dr. D said that getting massages was fine as well, so I plan to go to a licensed massage therapist once a week and PT at least 3 times a week once I get home, depending on how my schedule looks. Finally, I asked about flying and he said being on Xarelto makes flying a lot safer and that I didn’t need to move around constantly, but I should still move my legs if I remember to (and it’s something I would do even if I didn’t have CLL.) I felt better knowing that I could take a nap on the plane if I wanted to, because I definitely planned to try and sleep on the plane if I could. When I was leaving I did not schedule an appointment for my next visit since I wanted to check my early January schedule and flight prices, but I would probably schedule soon so I could save on travel costs. Everything is pretty much on track, so I left the doctor’s office quite content.
When I got back to the Airbnb from Dr. D’s office, I realized I was very hungry and hadn’t eaten anything yet. I didn’t have any leftovers, but I heated up two cans of soup in the microwave to tide me over until I could get to the airport food court. I consumed my soup quickly, along with some snacks and water. My Airbnb host texted me asking when I planned to check-out time and said I could check out later than usual if I needed to. I did plan to try and get another lengthening session completed before leaving the Airbnb since I would be checking the ERC in as soon as I reached the airport. First though, I needed to do some work. I proceeded to work for almost two hours even though I took the day off.
Finally it was time to pack my bags. I should at least try and get out of the Airbnb quickly since it was past check-out time. I mixed my old Xarelto pills into the new Xarelto bottle, and my old Norco pills into the new Norco bottle so I could toss two more pill containers and save some space in my bags. The expiration date on both is a year from now, so I don’t think mixing them really matters. I was going back with a little more stuff than I came with, so I would have to pack intelligently. Most of my clothes were in the dirty laundry bag, so I’d have to just stuff that in my luggage with as much air pushed out as I could. All the rest of my clothes I folded up and fit into my checked bag as well. I grabbed all the stuff in the bathroom and shoved it into my checked bag. All the stuff on the nightstand went into my backpack. I put my work laptop in my backpack in case I get bored at the airport and stuffed my personal laptop into my checked bag so I wouldn’t have to carry so much weight in my backpack. Not having to put the cane in my checked bag saved a little space as well. Overall I felt like my backpack was pretty light and wouldn’t put any extra strain on my nails, especially if I was walking with the cane.
Now it was time to do one last lengthening before leaving the Airbnb. I started my PT exercises and stretching. My legs actually still felt a bit tired, possibly from going to the doctor’s office earlier in the morning. It’s pretty sad when I can’t even handle a 90 minute appointment without being tired later in the day. I think it will definitely be a while before I physically recover from everything I’ve gone through. I managed to get through all the exercises and stretches though, and lengthened each leg. Although it had only been four hours since my first lengthening of the day, I surprisingly didn’t feel bad at all. Now came a moment of truth that I had been waiting for. I had come to Las Vegas with a pair of 30 inseam jeans that I wear often, but are normally a bit too long for me, and the bottom of the jeans covers the top part of my sneakers. Now I could see if I fit into these pants perfectly with my slightly longer legs. I took off my gym shorts and changed into the jeans. They went to my ankles instead of almost to my heels. I didn’t feel all that excited though, since it felt more like my pants shrank than my legs grew! I'm pretty sure I won't be able to wear these jeans with another two inches on my legs though! I then packed the ERC into it’s luggage container.
Finally, there was nothing left to do in the Airbnb except call a car to go to the airport. When my car almost got here, I texted the host that I was leaving and brought my stuff outside one item at a time. My checked bag was significantly heavier than the ERC, but it also had more wheels. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to lift the bag at any point, but if I did, I should be okay as long as both my feet are firmly planted on the ground. My ride arrived shortly after, and helped me load my bags into the trunk. I took a picture of the outside of the Airbnb that I lived in for a month with broken legs as a memory. Then we proceeded to head to the airport. This driver had actually picked me up before from Dr. D's office three weeks ago. I guess Vegas is a small enough place to get the same Uber driver twice. He actually remembered me since I had a walker last time and he said it looks like I’ve improved since I switched to the cane.
We arrived at the airport departures area next to a curbside check-in. The driver helped me unload my baggage at the side of the road, wished me well, and then drove off. The curbside check-in counter was empty as expected. I didn’t see anyone in sight that could help me. The ERC had two wheels and my checked luggage had four wheels. I basically used my luggage as a walker and pulled the ERC behind me and slowly made it to the baggage check area. I tagged both bags myself and then dropped them off with the airline staff. They didn’t even bother to check if my second checked bag was a medical device. I guess it looked close enough from the outside? The person checking my bags looked at my ticket and ID but didn’t look anything up on the computer or call me the wheelchair service.
I figured I was feeling pretty good at the moment so I could probably walk to the airport lounge and take a break there and then walk to the gate. I had quite a bit of time before my flight so I needed somewhere comfortable to sit, preferably with the ability to rest my feet on something. I didn’t really want to get wheeled around in a wheelchair anyway with the attention it would draw. I walked about 100 feet before starting to regret my decision. The first pre-check security gate was not open, I had to walk twice as far to get to the next open security gate. Going through security was interesting. It looked like they wanted me to go through the metal detector but then asked me if I had any metal in my body, to which I responded yes, so I had to go through the regular body scanner. They gave me a wooden cane and ran my metal one through the x-ray machine as well. Even after going through the body scanner they had to pat down my lower legs for some reason. At least it wasn’t my upper legs.
Once I got out of security I headed toward the airport lounge. Both it and my gate were in a different terminal, so I had to take two escalators and a tram to get to the right gate. At first I was nervous getting on the escalator, but I had enough speed to match the escalator when getting on and off. The tram ride was really short but I took one of the handicap seats since I really needed to sit down for a bit. On the other side I had to take a giant escalator up to the gates, which by this point I was an expert at already. When I got to the entrance of the concourse I took a look at the map. The lounge was not in the same branch as my departure gate, but I had plenty of time before my flight. I walked toward the lounge. Right outside the lounge there was a sub shop. I was pretty hungry so I ordered a giant sub and chomped it down, sitting in their socially distant seating area. Then I walked over to the entrance of the lounge only to see a tiny sheet of paper on the door that said the airport lounge was closed. I probably should have checked online. Unfortunately I had walked an extra few hundred meters for nothing.
I had nothing else to do here, so I walked over to my departure gate. I was so early that it was still “full” from all the people waiting for the flight departing before mine from the same gate. I found somewhere to sit down and unfortunately there would be nowhere to rest my feet so I tried to endure the pain. I wasn’t very successful. I tried a couple of different positions putting different amounts of pressure on my butt and feet, and bending my knees at various angles. Nothing was too comfortable. I think this is one thing that pre-LLers won’t understand until they experience it. Every single one of these sitting positions would have been fine before LL. I wouldn’t have to think twice about any of them before since no matter how I sat my baseline level of pain would always be 0/10. Now it basically varied from 2-4/10 depending on how I sat, and I couldn’t even stay in one position for too long either. The airport WiFi was fast so I tried to play a game on my phone. I could hardly focus and the screen literally felt like it was too far away for me to see things 100% clearly, even though it was the same distance I normally held my phone at. I think the phone felt further away because I was so focused on my legs. I did not get any benefit from the game and did not lose focus on my legs for even a second.
I had planned to get some work done while sitting on a comfortable couch in the airport lounge, but instead here I was suffering in the general boarding area where the chairs are basically designed to be uncomfortable. There was no way I could work right now. I didn’t even bother getting my laptop out. I saw a “laptop workstation” by the gate that had chargers and small tables to work on, but all the chairs were high stools, so I think those would have been even more uncomfortable than the gate seats. I eventually found some weird positions that I could tolerate. The first one was sitting on the edge of the seat and holding both armrests with my legs out straight in front of me. I looked like I was about to fall out of the chair, but this position allowed my legs to feel comfortable when they needed to be straight. However, when my knees needed to bend the best position was leaning forward with my knees as far back under the chair as possible and my elbows on the armrests. In fact this position worked so well that I actually dozed off for a bit, though it must have looked very weird to others when I was napping in that position (also lookalike like I was about to fall forward off of the chair.)
Finally it was around time to board the flight. I walked over to the restroom at the pace of a snail so I could go before boarding the plane. In the bathroom there was a row of guys at the urinals. Naturally when I lined up, my height dysphoria still kicked in since I realized I was the second shortest out of over 10 guys. My lengthening and hard work hadn’t really done anything yet, and the only guy shorter than me was clearly shorter than my original height. I really hope that the second and third inch do a lot more than the first one. I do think being another two inches taller here would have muddied the heights enough that I wouldn’t be able to tell if a good chunk of the guys were a little taller than me or the same height. Anyway, I quickly forgot about it and returned to the gate. An airline worker actually called me over and she said that she thought I would be here with a wheelchair. I said that I didn’t end up needing one but I would like them to get one ready for me at the destination. My home airport is huge and I was not planning to walk around over there. I already had over 5000 steps today and Dr. D said I should be averaging 2500/day during week five. Obviously my legs were already very tired.
Right when I sat back down, the flight actually started boarding. An airline employee found me in the gate area and asked If I wanted to board first and if I needed any help. I got onto the plane and I only had my light backpack on me so I was flying barebones, which is ideal. I put my backpack in the overhead bin since I was in the front row and didn’t have a seat in front of me to put it under. The flight attendant also said I had to put my cane in the overhead bin, which was reasonable. I didn’t want to hold onto it for the whole flight anyway. Plus the lavatory was right next to me so I didn’t need the cane even if I had to use the restroom. After everyone else boarded I remembered that I was planning to take a Norco for the flight, so I got my backpack back out of the overhead bin so I could pop the pill. The flight attendants hadn't given me any water yet, so I did the only thing I could, which is accumulate enough saliva to swallow the whole pill. It’s not a small pill by any means either. I managed to succeed by sticking a starburst candy under my tongue which produced a decent amount of saliva. Then I swallowed the pill, which was already a little bitter since I’m sure it was starting to dissolve in my saliva. I think the painkiller helped a bit as my legs hurt a bit less, though they were still constantly uncomfortable in the aircraft seat.
The flight itself wasn’t too bad. It was actually not packed at all on board, or at least I didn’t see too many people around me. I was able to stream movies onboard so I watched the new Harley Quinn movie, which was a perfect braindead action movie where I wouldn’t need to think about the plot at all. The whole time during the movie I would just switch my legs from straight and pushing off the wall in front of me to knees bent. Neither position was super comfortable, but the act of changing positions generally helped with pain. It was like at night when I have to keep changing positions to find a comfortable one, but I wasn't actively trying to fall asleep. After the first movie I still had time to watch at least part of a second one, so I watched Mulan. This one shows the crippled dad multiple times in the beginning, which immediately made me think of my own legs. At first I thought at least my impairment is only temporary unlike this character, but then I remember the character is just an actor who isn't actually crippled. I didn’t get a chance to finish the movie before the plane landed, but the couple of hours I was in the air were definitely tolerable. However, the thought of doing it two more times roundtrip before the end of the distraction phase made me shudder though.
I was one of the first to get off the plane, and there was a guy standing behind a wheelchair just outside the plane holding a sign with my name. I greeted him and sat down on the wheelchair and put my backpack on my lap. He pushed me to the baggage claim and my bags came out pretty quickly. Fortunately the ERC was still there. Even though I have like one or two grand worth of electronics in my other bag, the ERC would have cost me way more if I lost it. After grabbing both checked bags, he put the ERC under the wheelchair and pushed me with one hand while pulling my luggage in the other hand. We went to the rideshare pickup area in the airport. I had called a car as soon as he helped grab my luggage and it was waiting already. It’s much more expensive here than in Las Vegas because the airport is further out from the city, but I wasn’t exactly planning to take public transportation home. It was very cold outside and I only had a light jacket, but both the wheelchair pusher and the Uber driver were friendly and got me and my luggage into the car asap. I tipped the wheelchair guy and then headed out of the airport.
We took the highway into the city, which was not as congested as usual. When I finally got home it was almost midnight local time. Even though everything had gone perfectly smoothly and the plane even landed early, I still got back very late. The driver was even nice enough to bring my luggage into the front lobby of my building. When I entered my front door I realized that my place had a little musty smell, like no one had lived there for over a month. At least the lights still worked! It was cold since I had turned the heat to the minimum when I left, so I turned the heat back to a livable temperature and then I proceeded to unload just the basics from my luggage, which were my toiletries and chargers for my electronics. Then I went back out and grabbed the mail since I was pretty sure the mailbox was full. After I got back inside I looked around and disappointedly realized that I wasn’t any taller than before. I went over to the doorframe where I notched the wall at 169.5cm and 168cm for my morning and night heights. I took a measurement. I was barely over 170cm. I guess I’m only at 26mm right now, so that shouldn’t be surprising for my night height. Plus I have some APT, which is making it hard to straighten my back out perfectly and is surely reducing my height measurement. Nevertheless, the amount of height I had right this moment over my morning height was imperceivable, which led to a slight sense of disappointment. I can see now why many say the second and third inches make a much bigger difference in perception.
I heated up some food, then grabbed my laptop and took some notes down for my journal so I wouldn’t forget what to write about for today. While I was eating and writing I thought about all the stuff I could do now that I was at home, but I still needed to do my last lengthening of the day and then get some rest, so I’d basically have to push everything off to tomorrow. I can’t believe I still had enough energy to keep going at this point even though I didn’t take a nap during the day and barely slept last night. I laid out a yoga mat on the floor and started doing some PT exercises. I realized that I may or may not even be able to get up off the ground, but I’d deal with that later. First, exercises and stretching. Doing it on the ground was actually a bit easier than doing it on the bed at the Airbnb. Since the bed would move around and had no resistance it was actually harder to balance while doing some of the exercises. Once I finished my full set of everything I sat down on the couch with my feet on the ottoman to lengthen. This was probably the most comfortable I had been since I left the Airbnb this morning. Lengthening went great, and afterwards I immediately went to the bathroom to do my nighttime routine. Then I went to my bedroom, set an extra alarm, took a Norco, and tried to pass out quickly.
Surgery Day +30, Lengthening Day 27 (+1mm, 27.66mm total)It’s true that there’s nowhere like home. My bed was much more comfortable than the one in the Airbnb. I don’t like the bed slipping around on hardwood when I move and the one in the Airbnb was on wheels. I had to constantly push it back against the wall, which was annoying. My own bed has a nice frame and backboard, and anti-slip pads under the feet so I don’t ever have to worry about it moving around no matter how much I move around on it. Somehow it was much more comfortable in my own bed in every single position compared to the Airbnb. I don’t know if it’s the type of mattress, or that I’m just used to it, or that the heat is turned to the exact temperature I want, but regardless of the reason, even when I woke up with stiff legs in the middle of the night, it felt better. It was almost to the point of questioning whether I should have returned after the first office visit instead of the second one. However, I would have had a much harder time getting around the airport at the two week mark as opposed to the four week mark. I did wake up at one point in the night with my whole body shivering. I don't think it was that cold in my room, so I'm just going to blame the Norco. I remember warming up quickly and falling back asleep though.
I woke up before my alarm, as usual in the past few weeks. I decided to get up so I turned off all my alarms. I checked my sleep data and saw that I got 5.5 hours of sleep out of 6 hours in bed, including a solid block of almost four hours. Not bad at all! Considering how late I slept due to the late flight and having a change in time zones, and walking so much yesterday, I think it was good sleep all things considered. Normally I should be able to stay in bed for eight hours trying to sleep. I also noticed my final step count for yesterday was over 7300, which I think is pretty crazy at the 1 month mark. Even over the last few days when I’ve been doing long walks outside every day, I’m only in the 3000-4000 range. That means I probably walked the equivalent of two miles over the course of yesterday! I’m very curious to see how my recovery progresses over the next few months. After going to the bathroom and doing my morning routine I checked my work email and I was immediately bombarded with urgent requests. It certainly felt like a Monday since I took yesterday off, but the amount of work I have in front of me also makes it feel like a Monday.
I made some breakfast quickly and then started working. I marked an empty spot on my calendar after my first meeting to lengthen. Since it was only a 15 minute block, I wouldn’t even have time to do a full PT and stretch set. I did the following: bicycle kicks, quad lifts, Thomas stretch, towel quad stretch, butterfly stretch, and a hip adductor exercise. Those added up to about 12 minutes, and I saved the last three minutes to run the ERC. This was the most rushed lengthening session I’ve had. I didn’t have time to stretch afterwards either, and immediately called into my next meeting and continued to work for the rest of the morning. Like Dr. D suggested yesterday, I tried to get in some hip exercises and other stretches while working if I could. I think it actually helped a decent amount because I was 99% sure that my workstation at home would be uncomfortable to use since my chair was pretty high, but I realized that there were two metal bars under my desk that were perfect for resting my legs on, or even doing exercises with. It guess it’s like one of those treadmill desks for normal people, except for LL patients hah.
I got a chance to take a break at lunch, where I spent a little more time heating up food to eat. Since it was cold out, hot food definitely uplifts my mood. After eating it I was back to work, but I was pretty sure I could get to a good spot and wrap everything up for the day before it was time for my next lengthening session. For the rest of the afternoon I ended up working partly on my desk and partly on the couch when I needed to rest my legs while they are extended with full support. Fortunately I did manage to finish up relatively early today and started exercising right afterwards. I did a medium set of PT exercises and stretches in anticipation of the next lengthening session. I feel like my hamstrings are falling behind a bit, so I need to focus on hamstrings, but they are the most painful as well (which sounds about right since they are the tightest big muscle for me.) Afterwards, I lengthened in my new dedicated lengthening spot on the couch. Haven’t really felt any aftereffects yet when lengthening at home, but I think I’m definitely a little bit tighter overall than a few days ago.
After my second lengthening I was a tiny bit sweaty from exercising, though not really that much since it was kind of cold even with the heat on. It was time to do what I was looking forward to quite a bit - take a bath. I got into the tub first before filling it with hot water because my tub walls are pretty high and I didn’t want to try getting in there with water. At my current flexibility level I was barely able to get over the edge since I had to bend my knee more than 90 degrees. I sat down and once the hot water covered my legs completely, I realized why hot baths had such a good rep on these forums. I really didn’t feel any pain in my legs in the bath and my skin felt really good as well. Unfortunately I was a little uncomfortable in my tailbone area since my butt has basically disappeared since the surgery and leaning back just a little bit made that bone push into the tub floor. Overall it was okay though, and if I bent my knees and lowered my body into the water it wouldn’t hurt there anymore, and if I really wanted to I'm sure I could find something soft to sit on. I soaked in the bath for way too long while thinking about life, CLL, and how I got here. Before the operation I would often sit in the tub with my feet about three inches away from the wall to feel how much further out of the water I would be if I was three inches taller. It always felt like a big difference and I would feel like the bathtub would become too small if I was taller. Of course, in reality this isn't the case. At just over an inch, when I sat with my feet flush against the tub wall I didn’t feel a thing. Even with my feet two inches from the tub wall, I still didn’t feel a thing. So far I haven’t felt any impact from lengthening yet. I really hope that changes after I cross 5cm. I definitely haven’t reached the point where I can say “this was worth it” yet and I’ve been working at it for a full month. I'm still running on projections and hope.
After my bath I showered as well to actually clean myself, then dried off and went to make dinner. I still wasn’t in the mood to cook, but I had plenty of microwavable food including protein sources, so I continued to heat up easy food to eat. I plan to start cooking by this weekend at the latest. I ate slowly on my desk and realized that my legs were in a little bit of pain, no matter if my knees were bent or straight. I hadn’t taken any painkillers today except for one acetaminophen first thing in the morning, so I probably didn’t have anything in me right now. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take anything for the last lengthening, but I still had a few hours before then. Now that I actually had some free time, there were a few things that I needed to get done that I couldn’t in Las Vegas now that I was at home. I also had a ton of chores to do and I haven't even unpacked everything from my trip yet. Therefore I stayed pretty busy until late at night when it was time to do my last lengthening.
Also, after dinner I noticed that the local PT office that I had selected was closed already. Dr. D’s team had forwarded a referral and instructions to them this morning. However, they didn’t contact me at all today. I guess I will call in tomorrow to see when I can start scheduling PT since I didn’t want to fall too far behind. I’m definitely one of those people who needs the extra push from PT for stretching, especially if there is pain involved. Before LL when I was trying to lift heavy in the gym, the type of pain I would feel if I was doing the lift correctly is nothing compared to LL pains. When I push myself hard at PT, there is no "good pain". There are only two levels of pain: 1) “don’t feel it with the painkiller, keep going” pain and 2) “hurts even with the painkiller, make it stop” pain. I don't want to deal with the pain on my own so I'm basically outsourcing some of the suffering to the PT, who will have to hear me shout and complain. I also haven’t asked Dr D’s office for the prescription sleep aid yet. I want to try a few things and see if I can fall asleep without taking Valium, Ambien, or even an OTC antihistamine. Given that I had a relatively good night of sleep on my first night back home, I have some hope still. I haven’t given any thought as to where I was going to get my x-ray in two weeks, but I should probably schedule it soon. Knowing how slow some things happen in the medical world I might need to schedule it now to even get it in two weeks.
Finally, it was the end of the day and time to lengthen. I got all my tools and put them next to the yoga mat. I would do some upper body exercise as well since I didn’t want my non-leg muscles to atrophy as well. Of course that means I would need to eat more to maintain everything, but I should be able to pull that off. I worked out and stretched for over 30 minutes, which is a pretty long session for me at home. My legs were tired and in a little bit of pain, but working out made them less stiff and my whole workout was tolerable. Afterwards I lengthened and then got ready to go to bed. Instead of taking Norco before bed, I had something different to try - a chocolate edible. I know these worked pretty well in the past and made me very sleepy, and other lengtheners have given good reviews on it as well so it was worth a shot. After eating it and drinking a bunch of water, I sat in bed and got ready to sleep, though first I checked the forum and posted my backlog of journal entries. Now I’m going to go read something boring while I wait for my sleep aid to kick in. Good night, forum.
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Topic: BelowTheMean – Stryde Femurs w/ Dr. Debiparshad – Nov 2020 (Read 43094 times)