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[makeme6ft]

Intro-

I had the worst layover in the history of the world as I spent 30 hours in the Paris airport, I was exhausted and out of life in the first 14 hours itself. Since I did not carry a Shanon viza or have an American passport I could only stay in the airport. These were dreadful hours and I was thinking if its worth going to the lounge but I don't drink wine and the stay was only from like 6AM to 11AM I think.

I thought long and hard to myself why I was doing this. I also admitted to myself I'm flying here because I wanted this done quicker relative to my life span and created a situtaion for myself where acquiring a Russian visa was not feeling the worth. My conversations with Dr. Kulesh made me feel like he was the most caring Doctor in the world but despite that I was a little turned off by Android's results, although seemingly great I started to wonder if it's worth for me to be bed tied with those massive frames. I still have a great amount of respect for both Dr.Solomin and Dr.Kulesh and have no doubt that they truly care about their patients which is very clearly visible from every diary on here, especially Dr. Kulesh.

I debated a lot about what method to use. I like the short wearing time, but I also hate the extra surgery stuff. The cost analysis ain't easy. I read Smallguy's post about how badly LL aged him with all the repeat surgery, the thought of that happening to me at 19 terrifies me, to this day.. which made me lean towards something requiring less surgery. As in one major surgery for the external fixator and then a minor local anesthesia to remove the device upon consolidation. I truly do wonder about the pain though and if it persists the whole time you wear these devices, even during consolidation.

I will post a ton of pictures later. I had some amazing meals in Turkey and stuff that you guys would like to see

My pizza with 2 (organic milk and its ultra CHEAP)


I really loved this place






And here's the device. I plan to chose this device cuz it is reported to be fully weight bearing -



I know how much people hate monorails and this and that but I will be lengthening back at home in America. I thought about Ilazarov but pin bending is a concern for me. That aside I hope my legs alignment remains straight and I don't have any premature consolidation (we will see in the future). All the doctors that viewed my xrays said incredibly good things about my bone so I'm hoping recovery goes well too (will post my xry later; right now its with my doctor). I know for sure that I will only choose this device or Ilazarov for my leg lengthening and don't want any internal nails and such (LON, LATN) for my process. Feel free to weigh in your opinions though.


More info coming soon - this dairy is kinda trash at the moment but Im hoping to make it better entirely

I had a consultations with three doctors here and I ended up choosing the one that does not even speak English because I liked his professionalism and integrity which I feel every Doctor needs to have.
More on the info from consultations later

[makeme6ft]

I got incredibly busy

Had a few bad days

Wiring money was a huge problem for me since my bank rejected my wire transfer and I was unable to call them. I realized my sim card here in Turkey was not even activated for international calls.
Worrying about what to do, I looked over for some solutions and I got a voIP skype package (free calls to USA) and cleared the situation with my bank (Chase) . Saved me many euros I'd have to spent to call Chase from my Turkish number here to be honest..

Guys if you are travelling, I highly suggest you inform your bank. I realized now its customary but I did not do this which was quite problematic

That aside I got lost my keys for my BnB once and the owner had work at the airport so he'd come back at 1AM. This was tragic for me as not only was I locked out but I also had no battery on my phone. I did some exploring and stuff but it was overall a sad day. I also missed some school deadlines cuz of this .. oh well! that day has past

Surgery is going to be on Friday. Currently debating general anesthesia or spinal

[makeme6ft]

Got surgery today

Insisted on choosing spinal instead of GA

When the surgery finished I wasn’t in bad pain. But it got worse and worse but I didn’t feel like using the opioid drip. Eventually I started feeling extreme nausea, my legs were hurting and my body was weak tf. The meal I tried to force feed myself for energy came out bursting through vomit

Since there was no vomit bag I did it all across the floor. Felt really really good after it, thought to myself leg pain I can manage I guess

Then the nurses tried to feed me pills and I vomited them all out.

Eventually I had a vomit feeling without even properly vomiting or having stuff out of my mouth

The evening was pure torture as no nurse could speak English and I was in a very bad stage of extreme nausea and pain

[Ayesha12345]

Following your diary- wishing you a good recovery! Hang in there..

[cheekycabs]

PM me if you want man, I’m a Canadian living in Azerbaijan (Turkic country neighbouring), and my girlfriend is fluent in English and Turkish, and I’m pretty good at it. I’m consolidating now so I’ve just crossed the road you’re going on, and happy to help. You can whatsapp me and I’ll translate for you to fluent Turkish or help you any way I can. Doing full external ilizarov, and yes the pin points are the worst part of it.

Heads up, pain management is the hardest part of it all. Be ready for hell.

[cheekycabs]

Also, the food is phenomenal in Turkey. You’ll have no trouble eating.

Lahmacun
Iskendar
Che kofte
All sorts of doner kebabs
Menemen
The milk is awful, but probably good for you.

[makeme6ft]

Merhaba boys and girls,

Apologies for the late update

Since I've not updated in a while I'll give a brief rundown of what happened =

On day 2 I started using a walker but I could barely walk was in a lot of pain
On day 3 I had the catheter removed and could use a walker as normal. Felt great, walked a lot that day lmao - my dck though! damn.. it was hurting straight for an hour after the removal and I gotta say dck pains are worse than any leg pains
On day 4 I was an expert with the walker and wanting to explore the whole city of Istanbul lmao
And on day 5 perhaps the most bittersweet of all days, with the help of regular walking and my physiotherapist I was walking completely unaided. Although it was slightly daffy the duck walk type I was improving on it slowly

This was the bad day, maybe even the worst. My doctor's assistant came to show me how to lengthen and he ended up doing a 0.5mm reverse (distraction and then shortening) on my left leg. I could not walk unaided after this. Had sharp pains and I was REALLY REALLY mad at him. Emergency xrays were taken and the leg looked fine. This was a relief however since I had never ever heard of this happening before the uncertainty of the damage was killing me. We argued for a solid hour with both me and him shouting at our translator on a whatsapp call (LOL) and eventually I just had to accept it and hope nothing bad was going to happen.

The next day I had a ton of discharge (not blood but fluid) from the left leg and I needed a walker/crutches to walk.

The discharge continued for a straight 3 days since the reversal incident but eventually it subsidized. Originally I thought I was bleeding since I was on anticogulants the whole time and that is normal but it was not blood so positive news for that.

Originally I was planning to stay in Istanbul but this major major fk up which I felt like he treated my leg as if it were a toy combined with the huge language barrier (you 100% need Turkish friends with you to help translate or hire a translator and Im very very lucky in this regard that I had a friend at my disposal who spent hours and hours translating) but the move made me lose my trust and I decided to leave Turkey and lengthen at home.

Since I came back and tried to change my dressing you can see what my left leg looks like now, compared to the right one. I feel like its healing has just completely messed up after the reversal even though originally it was my better leg LMAO. The skin around the pins has compressed and it looks 'sunken in'

View at your own risk=
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

And here's my right leg

[spoiler]
[/spoiler]

Overall though I will say that I was taken well care of aside from that incident. Special thanks to the folks at wannabetaller.com, they seriously helped me a lot, especially with transportation and any concerns I had since he/they were also fluent in English. I had a translator arranged for the times I went to the Doctor for consultation. I still keep in touch with them since they are going to be helping me through my recovery.

The hospital was also pretty good, it was on par with a Western standard hospital. it was clean the nurses regularly checked up on you and of course there was the call button in case you needed anything. My physiotherapist also visited me daily while I was in the hospital and did an excellent job at aiding my fast recovery. After the surgery, I would thank her the most since she didn't just help me a lot with adjusting to the fixators but also spent a lot of time with me and being alone in a hospital bed can get very lonely very fast. I know a lot of Turkish terms now too lmaooo

The surgery went fine or so I like to think. Here's my post surgery xrays. I requested them to mail me the rest of my documents so I can continue my physiotherapy at home so Ill show my before's in a while as well


All opinions and concerns are welcome. I started lengthening on Monday (3 days ago) doing 1mm per day. So far I have not taken any pain medication. My left leg has muscle spasm pains at times but its managable. Walking gets a little harder when you stand up after lengthening but its still manageable. I use crutches to walk although after practicing walking a bit more I can walk unaided a little bit (but its still like a walking Duck)

Oh and I had a minor problem with the anticogulants which was that I got a 10 day supply but I wasn't sure if I needed more since I was suggested to take it for 20 days. I asked my doctor but he did not reply, although I got news that 10 days supply is okay.

Let's hope everything goes well. Misalignment and preconsolidation are kinda my biggest fear right now huff puff!!

[makeme6ft]

Also, the food is phenomenal in Turkey. You’ll have no trouble eating.

Lahmacun
Iskendar
Che kofte
All sorts of doner kebabs
Menemen
The milk is awful, but probably good for you.

Lol I love Turkish Sut!! wish they had large goatmilk bottles Id binge on that

[sopranos]

Hello friend. I am from Turkey. You're in a hard battle and you are in tough time. I wish you success.

Which limb were you operated on tibia or femur? Pictures are not visible. You can ask the admin to share your photos.

I am in the research stage. I know Serkan Gürcan from social media and his patients. What are your reasons to choose Turkey and Dr. Gürcan? There arent many diaries from Turkey. You're one of those rare ones. 

How is your health now?  Can you express your pain levels on 1 to 10 numbers?

Which fixators did you prefer? Can you give me some detail? And if it's not special, can you tell us your first height, age and gender. In fact, it would be better if you write these at the top of your post. I really asked you a lot of questions. I am sorry for this but i hope you answer.

Good luck and best wishes.

[Canon]

What have you paid?

[makeme6ft]

I will update this more later. Apologies


I debated a lot about posting this video of me walking completely unaided below. Out of spite for my doctor who has never replied to me personally since I left the country basically leaving me on my own entirely to figure out what to do. I hate him a lot to be honest and the whole experience with how I was dealt. Till now I feel like I'm doing this journey on all my own and my doctor has abandoned me

But here you go. Im at like 2.2cm now doing 1mm/day distraction. No problems so far, I dislike sleeping in these things mainly. I dont take pain killers or anything.

The video:

https://imgur.com/kksuOwA

[makeme6ft]

Also there should be a modification edit available. I want to change my bio but it seems Im unable to :/

[makeme6ft]

Hello friend. I am from Turkey. You're in a hard battle and you are in tough time. I wish you success.

Which limb were you operated on tibia or femur? Pictures are not visible. You can ask the admin to share your photos.

I am in the research stage. I know Serkan Gürcan from social media and his patients. What are your reasons to choose Turkey and Dr. Gürcan? There arent many diaries from Turkey. You're one of those rare ones. 

How is your health now?  Can you express your pain levels on 1 to 10 numbers?

Which fixators did you prefer? Can you give me some detail? And if it's not special, can you tell us your first height, age and gender. In fact, it would be better if you write these at the top of your post. I really asked you a lot of questions. I am sorry for this but i hope you answer.

Good luck and best wishes.

I am doing Tibia
I initially wanted to do this procedure in Russia but for other reasons (hurry) I decided to leave that out and pursue Turkey. Dr Serkan seems one of the best in Turkey, though turkey is not the most popular place to do leg lengthening. It would be better for you to get it from him than me as you can speak Turkish and the Doctor cannot speak in English. Communication barrier was not very easy to solve, even with the help of translator because they aren't exactly proficient in the details about the surgery/devices. I found the Doctor and the option of Turkey through wannabetaller.com though. Their phone number should be on the website

The fixators I have are basically monorails. I have a total of 7 pins attached (4 on upper tibs, 3 on lower). Monorails tend to be riskier than standard ilazarov but different doctor say different things about this. The inventor of the device Im using told me that misalignment is a common issue on cosmetic patients using it and they'd have to use another fixator (its basically the same thing but it looks curved) to correct the misalingment and that involves another surgery but my Doctor (dr.Serkan) said it would be okay. In the end I did it anyway

Im 175cm tall. Im an adolescent and male.

[makeme6ft]

Its really cool walking unaided. I dont swing my hips either.. I walk normal, just slower... cool huh boyos

And still, fk the doctor. I dont recommend lol

[InFullStryde]

Hi Makeme6ft,

You're walking good. Keep up the good work!  Have you searched for other local orthopedic doctors? Although, most orthopedic surgeons will not perform CLL, they do LL all the time for deformities. They will likely be happy to provide professional support and guidance for you now that surgery is done.  Good luck! I'll follow your diary.

[makeme6ft]

I will try to narrow down the details of why I hate my doctor in an honest way since I imagine loads of ya folks are probably confused

To start with, I loved the hospital and the Doctor spent his time answering all my questions during our first consultation. I visited him a few times after that and he always let me ask away and share various xrays about his different cases with me. I have no doubt he is an experienced surgeon. This is why I chose him mainly. I booked my surgery date with him and began the preparation. I was dreading catheters and whatnot lol but I will say the first 3 days post surgery were a 10/10 to be honest. Despite all the pain on the first and second day which can easily make the entire day hell. He and his assistant was attentive, visited me often, and I was looked well after. After that though it was basically sailing on a solo boat.

1) He performed the surgery well which is a huge plus +. Or so I think. I have uploaded my post surgery xrays here of the left leg that was taken when the reversal occured (see 2).

2) His assistant distracted and reversed my left leg by 0.5mm 4 days post op. This fked me up badly, both mentally and physically. His other staffs even made excuses like 'so what if he did? what expert has said you can't distract 4 days post op' I was raging on texts because its an external fixator. I got sharp pains and muscle spasms trying to walk that day and I was so upset but I still refused pain killers. The next 3 days I had a lot of discharge and it wasn't blood which I first thought it was, just a colorless fluid constantly oozing out if I sit down or use even light force on left leg.

3) On the day of hospital discharge which is when he promised to give me my xray and file report he did not even see me. The taxi driver kept waiting for me and they made excuses like 'he got into another surgery bla bla' but basically didnt see me the whole day when he was supposed to, and also give me my xray documents.

4) I asked my documents to be mailed to me since I was not given them on the day of discharge as promised. I really wanted my intial xrays which I paid a lot for cuz they were with measurements and to this day I have not been mailed them. I will say though the hospital stay and surgery info documents were sent to me on text. But I mainly wanted all my xrays

5) He doesnt speak English. I was thinking communication would be okay with a translator throughout the journey but boy it doesnt work like that. Because of this he's never replied to me personally since I have contacted him, even if I show him xray pics. If he cant speak English I expect him to use his translator that works in his hospital office to do his job but he never bothered. Even if I got my friend to translate my message in Turkish to him, he would not reply. fk him so much for that


As you can see from here, he isn't the worst guy in the world but my experience with him wasnt good even if IM doing extremely well at the moment and walking completely unaided.

[makeme6ft]

Hi Makeme6ft,

You're walking good. Keep up the good work!  Have you searched for other local orthopedic doctors? Although, most orthopedic surgeons will not perform CLL, they do LL all the time for deformities. They will likely be happy to provide professional support and guidance for you now that surgery is done.  Good luck! I'll follow your diary.

Thank you IFS. It is an honor to have you read my dairy

I have one that is a neighbor LOL and he treats me much like his son which is great. However he informed me he isn't an expert on leg lengthening but to call him/let him know if any complication arises. I also asked him to judge my pin site cleaning and he was nice enough to provide me some extra supplies to last two months.


So far I have not had any complication . I initially was not at all expecting my recovery to be smooth but now Im feeling quite confident. I will get my xray soon and send it to Dr.Serkan which Im really hoping he spends his time to judge my progress and get his fckn translator to give me feedback.

[Canon]

How is it going?

[InFullStryde]

Thank you IFS. It is an honor to have you read my dairy

I have one that is a neighbor LOL and he treats me much like his son which is great. However he informed me he isn't an expert on leg lengthening but to call him/let him know if any complication arises. I also asked him to judge my pin site cleaning and he was nice enough to provide me some extra supplies to last two months.


So far I have not had any complication . I initially was not at all expecting my recovery to be smooth but now Im feeling quite confident. I will get my xray soon and send it to Dr.Serkan which Im really hoping he spends his time to judge my progress and get his fkn translator to give me feedback.

I will thinking of you Makeme6ft.   Take care of yourself the best you can with stretching.  I think you will do well despite the lack of attention from your doctor.  Hopefully the doctor becomes more responsive. I cannot believe that is has gone quite.  That is awful.  Either way, it is likely that your surgery went fine and you will be fine. We will see how it goes.   How are you x-ray's looking?

[makeme6ft]

Here's some xrays close to 3cm now

Right leg
[/b][/u]

Left leg


Slight misalignment on left leg? Doc told me not to worry.

[makeme6ft]

Update:

I've had a bit of pain in the night on the 13th March. I lengthened 0.75 instead of 1mm yesterday and everything went back to normal

For some reasons I tend to sleep 9-10 hours in these fixators. I do not know why, Im not normally a huge sleeper .. I also don't/barely have any sort of pain and I have not taken a single pain killer since my hospital discharge, some days I walk a lot and some days I walk very little but its my main form of pysiotherapy.

Right now at 3.3mm I have 0 signs of ballerina or know about anything weird with my body. Feeling very blessed that LL has been such a huge breeze for me.

I have almost reached my halfway goal. The final is 7cm! 

[LLwarrior]

Can we see the fibula in those xrays?

[makeme6ft]

Can we see the fibula in those xrays?

Right leg

Front view


Lateral view


Left leg

Front view


Lateral view

[LLwarrior]

you need to know that with monorails you could get misalignament , and it cant be corrected, so if that happens you will need to stop the lengthening

[Veryshortman]

How is it going? I am thinking of using this surgery.
Is the leg lengthening difficult?
You mentioned cleaning pin sites what does this involve?

[Astronomy]

Wish you all the best
You've just broadened ller's cognization cuz there are really extremely few diaries about Turkey surgeries

[lelouche]

hey bro, are there any updates? How are you doing, got you any complications?

[0010010]

Hey mate,

I hope you're well.

How's the recovery shaping up?

[lucindaris]

Hi man, how much did you pay for the surgery?

[willgettaller]

hi man, congrats on your journey! I wanted to ask how did you feel with those fixators since there are other surgeons do not prefer these ones. But i talked to a patient from wannabetaller team before and he said these are ligther and more handy etc. But also i have never seen that many pins in this type of fixators either. Why your surgeons put a few more he has explained that ? (Sorry if this was asked before, i couldn't check through all the chat history)

[drxboom]

an unfinished diary, it's scary ı hope all is well and you are healthy