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[SpeedDialer]

Although not fashionable, a fanny pack is very useful. As are zippered pockets on your pants for sure. The nurses wear scrubs, which have very loose pockets and I've seen phones drop before

I could have brought a very loose and soft vest with zippers or buttons also which would have been useful when I had IV needles sticking out of my hands. But that is only for a few days, after which time putting on a loose shirt is very easy

[SpeedDialer]

Psychologically, the first week has changed my mindset a bit. Before, it was like "I really wanna get to 7 cm on femurs" and now its like "man even if I had to stop at like 5 cm, I think I'd still be quite happy"

I wonder if this will change later as I recover more though and become less afraid

[Issun-Boshi]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Out of curiosity - what's making you afraid?

[OzBoy39]

Psychologically, the first week has changed my mindset a bit. Before, it was like "I really wanna get to 7 cm on femurs" and now its like "man even if I had to stop at like 5 cm, I think I'd still be quite happy"

I wonder if this will change later as I recover more though and become less afraid

Man, take my words for it. It will change.
All patients the first 2 weeks get discouraged to the point that they start questioning whether they should even start the lengthening.

To me, the worst days were the first few at the hotel. Going off the heavy IV painkillers, starting the clicking and all the general pains you have, will f..K with your mind badly.  Or at least they did with me and other patients I've met.

But as others before me already said, I can confirm you that after these first few days (or couple of weeks) everything becomes easier.

Plus you start seeing the gains in height wohich5is a massive mental booster. Just keep this in mind. All the shot that's going through your head is just a temporary chemical imbalance that's caused by the trauma you e gone through. It's just temporary.
Stay strong and find something interesting to pass the time.... Movie series, documentaries, whatever's turns your crank.

[SpeedDialer]

Man, take my words for it. It will change.
All patients the first 2 weeks get discouraged to the point that they start questioning whether they should even start the lengthening.

To me, the worst days were the first few at the hotel. Going off the heavy IV painkillers, starting the clicking and all the general pains you have, will f..K with your mind badly.  Or at least they did with me and other patients I've met.

But as others before me already said, I can confirm you that after these first few days (or couple of weeks) everything becomes easier.

Plus you start seeing the gains in height wohich5is a massive mental booster. Just keep this in mind. All the shot that's going through your head is just a temporary chemical imbalance that's caused by the trauma you e gone through. It's just temporary.
Stay strong and find something interesting to pass the time.... Movie series, documentaries, whatever's turns your crank.

Thanks!!!

Today was a bit rough, was practicing transferring onto the toilet with a nurse, got very dizzy/nauseous, puked into sink. Did not fall because the nurse was there to help. My current plan is to do more practice walker walking around the perimeter of the bed with a plastic bag and phone in case I fall (then can land on the bed) or need help or puke again

And still in the morning I'm finding the legs to be very stiff, trying to use pillows under them to help slightly stretch them first before doing the exercises

Quads and hip flexors being very sore also a problem, makes it difficult to do the stretches

[OzBoy39]

Thanks!!!

Today was a bit rough, was practicing transferring onto the toilet with a nurse, got very dizzy/nauseous, puked into sink. Did not fall because the nurse was there to help. My current plan is to do more practice walker walking around the perimeter of the bed with a plastic bag and phone in case I fall (then can land on the bed) or need help or puke again

And still in the morning I'm finding the legs to be very stiff, trying to use pillows under them to help slightly stretch them first before doing the exercises

Quads and hip flexors being very sore also a problem, makes it difficult to do the stretches

I feel for you man. Stay strong. This is it. This is the   period. It'll be better by the end of this coming week and you'll already be 15mm taller.

 Yeah use the help of the nurses as much as you need. They'll be happy to help you I'm sure.

Tomorrow PT will be helpful too. I'll see you there I guess. I'll be in at 12pm. What time do you go?

[SpeedDialer]

Still thinking about the best ways to move in bed

If you are going backwards, then pushing w/ triceps to scooch back and slide helps

But what i've found for going forwards in the bed is you can basically also slide forward, which hurts less than raising your butt to move forward

If you clear the space in front of your feet, grip/grab the covers with your hands, and pull yourself forward, most likely your butt and body will just slide forward on top of the sheets and you won't have to raise your butt

Still having trouble rotating legs in bed though, has potential for accidental clicks. I'm somewhat under the impression that at some point need to rotate the butt otherwise the legs will be rotated with respect to the butt -> accidental clicks

Currently thinking if I leave the bed, I should always clip on my fanny pack with my phone in it- that way the worst case scenario even if I fall I'll have access to my phone to call for help

[SpeedDialer]

I feel for you man. Stay strong. This is it. This is the   period. It'll be better by the end of this coming week and you'll already be 15mm taller.

 Yeah use the help of the nurses as much as you need. They'll be happy to help you I'm sure.

Tomorrow PT will be helpful too. I'll see you there I guess. I'll be in at 12pm. What time do you go?

I'll be there 1:30 PM, unsure how long are physical therapy sessions usually?

[OzBoy39]

Yeah I might still be there. Lately my sessions have become longer since starting to use the treadmill.

I'll see you there then

[SpeedDialer]

still having problems w/ accidental clicks from transferring from one surface to another (ex: wheelchari to bed, taxi to wheelchair, bed to wheelchair). When accidental clicks happen during a transfer, it doesn't quite hurt as much as cause alot of stress/sudden feeling, sweating, feeling of lack of stability and fear of falling

The 'grab the bed at random places with both fists', pull, and slide forward completely straight when lying on the bed has helped alot in decreasing accidental clicks. In general keeping the legs straight helps alot but is sometimes a bit difficult to figure out how to keep the legs straight

But its harder when there are inherently angles in the situation (ex: transfer from wheelchair to bed, you can't just fall straight into the bed straight, you have to sort of park your wheelchair side by side with the bed)

One of my wound dressings has gone loose, has been oozing/bleeding, messaged the nurse on whatsapp, not sure if I should do anything else

[SpeedDialer]

Very, very tight quads, confused, it wasn't like this the first day after surgery

trying to constantly stretch quads at least gently with pillow setup (sitting up, knee to chest, heel towards butt gently)

But quads so tight I can't bicycle in some setups due to range of motion issues, gotta find a solution

[SpeedDialer]

At some point after coming to your location for LL, a nurse recommended I get an ice pack

The purpose is to help with the pain right after you finish clicking

I am not sure it would be good to use if you are about to stretch later though, maybe only use when finished for the day or just in alot of pain? not sure

[SpeedDialer]

Especially right before a click happens, certain muscles will tense up

it is a bit easier once I could really feel which muscles were tensing up and then relax those specifically

there is sort of a twisting feeling associated with the leg right before the click and it feels as if you kinda let that twisting feeling happen in the tissue and not fight it w/ contractions

I sort of feel the contraction and then pause and think and try to relax those muscles that just contracted and then continue pushing forward for the click

[SpeedDialer]

if I were to do it again, I'd get a slightly bigger fanny pack, there is not much downside to it, you can hold more stuff, don't have to worry about stuff falling out of your pocket, it doesn't really get in the way during physical therapy sessions provided its not like massive

[SpeedDialer]

Generally want to put the pee bottle on flat surfaces, not the bed, because .. well you know

You can take the pee bottle from hospital to the hotel with you (ask)

[thankscience]

How do you normally resolve tightness in the muscles? Or do you just wait for it to pass?

Also, when you order things to the hotel (e.g. groceries), do the staff bring it up to you?

[SpeedDialer]

How do you normally resolve tightness in the muscles? Or do you just wait for it to pass?

Also, when you order things to the hotel (e.g. groceries), do the staff bring it up to you?

I apologize, I am still trying to work out the first question tbh. Because I am early in the process, the muscle tightness isn't excruciating, but it is stopping me from doing cycling esp my left quad so I've just been stretching it gradually. I am lucky that any painful muscle spasms I've gotten so far are very small and brief. But I've only done a bit less than 1 cm

I apologize, I actually have not ordered groceries yet but am looking through the apps to do this. I feel pretty certain that if I ordered food, the hotel would call me with the phone that is in each room and then I'd ask them to bring it up to me. The reason I feel relatively certain they would do this is that they do bring up the hotel's breakfast to me when I ask

Any Montaza hotel LL veterans want to chime in?

[SpeedDialer]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Out of curiosity - what's making you afraid?

The first weeks of LL, you get a taste of what it would be like to not walk again and you get a taste of what things could be like if things go wrong

The helplessness, the pain, the tightness, the thighs feeling like they are 1000 pounds, the somewhat less than ways to deal w/ pee/poo when you can't physically walk to the bathroom yourself, a certain feeling instability on the legs even when I use a walker (its getting better though)

And its like "if my recovery doesn't go well, maybe the future will look something like this"

[SpeedDialer]

So after thinking about it, I think you really want your shorts to be way softer, more elastic, and looser than you think you need. Probably the post surgery button tearaway shorts is optimal but if you can't get that then just a very very soft and very large and elastic pair of shorts would be good. I'd say don't even use their pockets for fear of something falling out (pretty easy for that to happen), just use a big fanny pack to store stuff you want to bring with you.

Really the only point of the shorts is so you don't have to show your privates to the physical therapists, you want the shorts to just get out of the way functionally and not cause any discomfort

[SpeedDialer]

Making some progress on the clicking techniques, found a way to do it with just one pillow + using a strap to assist with the second (inward leg movement) click, should be able to do it on my own soon

I have found that because its so hard to turn to your side, you'll be sitting on your butt alot of the time, which is alot of heat and pressure

I've found a small handheld fan useful so I can tilt to one side and fan one butt cheek at a time to relieve at least the heat part of this

[SpeedDialer]

Psychologically, the pain and frustration today (alot of which came from the difficulty of moving, feeling heavy thigh'd in bed, constant pressure on butt) caused these thoughts: "man I don't care about 7cm vs 5cm, I'd be happy to do just 5 cm just please let me walk again normally" and "I don't care about doing LL a second time, I'd be happy to just get 5 cm and be done with this"

I don't know if these thoughts will continue but I felt these thoughts more strongly today

[SpeedDialer]

Unlike the first two days after surgery, the quads are just so tight and sore now that it make it difficult to stand up with the walker, alone I get maybe one out of 8 attempts at standing up from bed to walker, spaced out over an hour

If I can resolve this problem, I feel I can remove alot of the misery of the current experience, alot of which is from the constant unrelenting pressure on the butt from sitting down and a feeling of not being able to escape (very difficult to rotate to the side without causing some pain/weird feeling deep in thigh)

That and if I can accomplish some toilet transfer unassisted that will also go a long way in making me feel less trapped and more free

[thankscience]

Making some progress on the clicking techniques, found a way to do it with just one pillow + using a strap to assist with the second (inward leg movement) click, should be able to do it on my own soon

I have found that because its so hard to turn to your side, you'll be sitting on your butt alot of the time, which is alot of heat and pressure

I've found a small handheld fan useful so I can tilt to one side and fan one butt cheek at a time to relieve at least the heat part of this

Is the nurse still assisting you with clicking?

[SpeedDialer]

Is the nurse still assisting you with clicking?

yes

[SpeedDialer]

I think I might have found a way to make the experience alot less miserable

When I sleep, I am on top of the bed normally (on top of bed lying on my back, parallel to bed like the normal sleeping position) (because I am following the instructions I was given of having a suitcase under the feet end of the bed mattress in order to elevate the feet)

BUT, given that the feet end of the bed is slopped upward (due to the suitcase under it)..

I'm finding that after waking up, it is a bit better for me to be perpendicular to the bed more of the time when I want to frequently do stretches. Can more easily sit at edge of bed, hang legs off edge of bed to stretch quads, lay back with legs hanging off bed to stretch quads more, sit back up and use a nearby chair next to my desk table to help stretch my hamstrings, quickly be able to go from bed to walker to practice that transfer many times, decreases the amount of time I am just on my butt -> no longer constantly putting pressure on butt -> alot less miserable, feel less trapped

I feel morale increasing and feel more confident I can do this

The improvements I made with clicking last night also helped me increase morale

[OzBoy39]

Good to hear that man,
The first week at the hotel is the hardest. Next week you'll start feeling much better. Good job

[thankscience]

How long are you stretching for each day? I'm glad to hear your morale is increasing - I'm sure it will keep going up from here.

[SpeedDialer]

How long are you stretching for each day? I'm glad to hear your morale is increasing - I'm sure it will keep going up from here.

I apologize, I should be more disciplined about knowing this but I find myself sort of doing light hamstring and quad stretches for like 20 minutes, then I take a nap, then later when I wake up a few hours, I do it again

I think maybe I should be stretching more but I haven't found my rhythm yet

[SpeedDialer]

observations on clicking:

- lean your upper body in the same direction your arm is moving -> then gravity is on your side, you can just relax your whole body more and the weight of your arm on the leg will help to push it into the right position when clicking

- don't entirely stop when you tense up right before click (risk accidentally going backwards in position and then have to push more later, just prolongs the pain), I think keep applying light pressure but try to relax the muscles as you are still applying pressure

- I've found that one big pillow under the leg seems to work well for trapping the heel/keeping the heel still. A strap helps alot for helping to position the feet we are finding

Mediterranean food, including Greek food, seems to have alot of cheese, tomato sauce, and lemon to flavor food, its not quite my jam but I'm certain that eventually I'll find some food I like at the hotel

I guess I should be more disciplined about finding more foods to eat but it is somewhat easy to just eat the hotel breakfast and then a cheap ice cream bar from them later

Alot of omega 3 supplements and omega 3 containing foods like flax seed seem to interact w/ blood clotting so I've been too afraid to eat them for fear they will mess w/ the xarelto I'm taking

Eventually I should probably find some fish dishes to eat that don't have lemon, there's gotta be alot of options, its Athens, its near the sea

[SpeedDialer]

I'd strongly recommend one thing:

do not immediately open taxi doors to exit taxis in Athens Greece

-> look left and right carefully through the window, lots of little bikers zipping around in these narrow streets, don't know when they'll show up and run into your suddenly opened door

in general, Athenes has lots of narrow roads with lots of parked cars obstructing the view

-> can just wait for the nurse (if he/she is with you) to open the taxi door at an appropriate time

For moving in the taxi, I'd suggest always sliding back first then sliding forward at gentle angles. Much easier than rotating your whole body 90 degrees immediately (bad, greater chance of accidental clicks)

[SpeedDialer]

Thinking about how to do the IT band stretches and also the adductor stretches w/ strap without accidental clicks

I'm assuming if I just keep my leg very straight there should be no problems w/ accidental clicks? not sure