Limb Lengthening Forum
Limb Lengthening Surgery => Limb Lengthening Patients Experiences => Topic started by: Thegosis on December 09, 2013, 04:07:00 PM
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I'm a current patient from overseas in Beijing. My operation to put on the fixators was 27 November this year. That was day one. On day nine I commenced lengthening at .667mm per day and I have missed one day due to illness. At the weekend I was sent to the parent hospital for investigations due to my persistent diahorrhea, and I had vomiting a couple of nights before. I have a strong persistent cough and voice hoarseness. I walk slowly with a frame so that I was able to go across from my bed and into the bathroom yesterday.
Dr Peng Aimin was my operating surgeon. I have not seen Dr Xia or Dr Li except where there are pictured and listed on the staff directory. The international liaison Dr Wang Bei (Ronne) has a line of contact to Dr Xia.
There is another foreign patient here who has finished lengthening: a female who goes home to Europe later this month. I'm not sure there is a male, but two males are coming soon: an American, an Australian. Other patients come from at times far parts of China and they are correcting abnormalities of leg length and range of motion. Small kids, middle aged and between.
I'm waiting upon receiving protein isolate supplementation, glucosamine, calcium supplementation and the other things which consolidate the growth and expansion of new bone tissue, nerves and musculature.
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Thanks for coming here and starting this diary. I've been eager to hear what's been going on in Beijing since I was last there.
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Hey I'm really looking forward to your diary bro! Congratulations on having the courage to go under the knife, it will really pay off. May I ask if you paid the standard 24,000 Euro for surgery and accommodations? Also how hard is it to communicate with nurses, doctors, fellow patients? Do enough people speak English besides Ronnie? I know I'm full of questions, but do you mind if you take pictures of your frames?
Many thanks!
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What sort of food were you eating before you experienced illness? When I was last in Beijing with a group of students a few people got stomach troubles after a few days of the food there. We were told that a lot of people get digestive problems due to not being used to the way food is prepared there. Apparently this is especially true in India as well. Hope you get better. It will be cool to see your progress in the coming months.
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I wish you a speedy recovery :)!
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All the best for recovery, remember to stay positive. Look forward to your updates.
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Ronne is a permanent staff member and fluent in English. The closest person to you will be a maid and they will have no ability to communicate outside their own language. Dr Zhao is the one who has seen me most frequently since the operation and I have not had the need to employ translations to Chinese with him. The elder nurse is also able to ask questions in English. I'm able to bring up wifi access to use translate.google.com for English-to-Chinese, and fanyi.baidu.com can operate the other way.
The price is the advertised $EUR24000 and I was also quoted $US33000
I feel recovered from what had me squirting diahorrea, but I will still be taken to the parent hospital tomorrow for a followup investigation. Somehow cold temperament and uninspiring food worked together to hold up my progress and cost me some extra.
For patients, next week will see a couple less locals who are willing to say some things in English and a couple of foreigners that are yet to undergo surgery.
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Thanks for starting the diary and look forward to it, since there's not been a diary of Beijing China for some time..
How is your pain level and what are your impression of the medical care so far?
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Good to hear Dr. Zhao is still there. He started when I was there and nobody was keen on listening to his advice, instead wanting to get Dr. Peng's opinion on everything. He was a cool guy though and now he's got 6 years' experience.
Some people got sick there while others didn't and I don't really know why. I guess different people just react to that environment differently.
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Hi
thanks for staring the diary.. it will be great if you could post sm pic
hope everything goes well in your in your investigation tmw :)
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The apparatus is fixated with four penetrations at the rear of the heel, four just above the ankle, one into the lower shin and another in line with that an inch below the knee. There are four more at the same level as the top shin penetration
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Interesting. I had the 4 penetrations (actually from 2 pins, one penetration when it goes in and one when it comes out the other side) above the ankle and below the knee. And the 4 half-pins in the heel. But nothing like the single penetrations into the lower shin and an inch below the knee.
I know they changed their osteotomy method so people would have faster bone growth, but I wonder why they added 2 more half-pins.
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Ni hao Thegosis. I hope all is going well with your lengthening! Did the Beijing doctors affix each of your cut fibula bones to their corresponding tibia in one place or two? Are both the tops and bottoms of your fibulas nailed or surgically attached to the tibia?
How do you like the Guang Ji hospital so far? Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us, and best of luck with your procedure!
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I don't know the answer to this question about the fibulae. There is another foreign patient coming next week Christmas Eve which is the day that the only other foreigner leaves. Two others will come in the new year.
Just this afternoon I demonstrated the frames to visiting specialists from Japan and Korea and Dr Zhao has removed the stitches in my shins. I saw Dr Xia for the first time. Another local doctor has come by who speaks to me in English. All the x-rays have shown unproblematic progress, but I am still hooked up each morning to an IV to combat digestive infection and persistent cough. I can remain standing unsupported and walk with a frame, but not take steps that put all of my weight on one leg.
January is the coldest month and this month is the second coldest. 5pm and -4 Celcius outside.
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The international contact for this place is Dr Wang Bei (Ronne): leglengthening@aliyun.com
+86 13621226277 (office)
+86 1083685806 (mobile)
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Tonight's canteen dinner
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Hey Thegosis, how's everything going? how much have you lengthened and how much have you got left to go? Are you feeling better now?
It's really good to see a current diary from Beijing. Since there have been so many Beijing diaries on old forum in the past I can understand that there might not be a point in documenting every little thing which has already been documented in the previous diaries but I think what some people are wondering is if everything in the hospital is still the same as it was back a few years ago when we had all those diaries on old forum . Before your diary I was wondering if they still offered cosmetic LL in Beijing due to the fact that there were no new diaries and they hospital did not respond to Sysop's email requesting updates on their pricing.
So basically my questions are; is everything in Beijing the same as it was before 2012 or are they discouraging foreign patients from getting LL?,why aren't there other foreign patients at the hospital? And Do you have any idea roughly how many foreign patients get LL a year?
Thanks for your diary and I wish you a complication-free journey.
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As of 15 February I'm back home doing my last two months of lengthening. I go back to Beijing via Kuala Lumpur on 15 April and around 15 March will be sending back an x-ray. Just before I departed Beijing the doc (Dr Zhao) informed me that my growth was 4.5cm based upon x-rays of the day before which revealed no complications.
By early February, thanks to a lot of monitoring and medication (including IV drips) I saw off first the respiratory infection and then the diahorrea.
There are three foreign LL patients (two male, one female) currently at the hospital and I think there may be a couple more as well by the time you read this. There have been between two and five foreign patients on deck, including myself, over the time since I arrived there except for on Christmas Eve when I was the only one for several hours.
According to Ronne just before I left, they are going to be taking less foreign LL patients this year because of their anticipated influx of local patients. That is just for space considerations.
It is a little odd if someone is emailing to leglengthening@aliyun.com and not getting acknowledgement or reply. I have used that address on a daily basis to correspond with Ronne. She was absent for a period of seven days starting from 31 January which corresponded with the Chinese New Year.
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Thanks for the update. Why did you leave?
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I wouldn't have left at all if it wasn't the rule of the Australian Government which stops payment of social welfare benefits to those who've been outside of the country for more than six weeks, extended temporarily in some medical circumstances. Once that came into play on about 4 February I could apply for a further extension which always takes them around 4 weeks to decide, but would be backdated, or moot the issue by returning onshore. There's also the sheer tedium of not achieving anything, day upon day and week upon week, other than 4 turns of the frame dials which is a daily advance of .667mm The other advantages of being at home are:
* less tedium but still inching along there at .667 without a complication
* eating better
* being with family and pets. Staying at my home rather than a hospital
* facebook, bbc.co.uk and youtube are not blocked here, as they are in China
* daily temperature here is minimum 22 Celcius, whereas in Beijing it's still low single digits. Snow was covering the ground on the day I left
* removing the environmental factors which disposed me to respiratory infection and diahorrea while I was at the Hospital
* now if I want or need an abnormally long period for postlengthening rehabilitation under medical supervision in Beijing there's no risk of it costing me extra
It's atypical for a patient to request to do it this way, but the doc has excused my absence through to April. I'll be returning there 16 April, expecting to undergo investigative xray same day or very soon after. I had to undertake a course of antibiotics and herbal medication (called Sanqi Shangyao Pian, aiding healing of periostium bruising) as prophylaxis of the risks of travelling with legs unelevated for so long on the airline flight and airport transfers. The ideal and recommended posture of the legs for lengthening is to have them level and stretched out ahead with no bending at the knee. So having 24 hours with my feet on the ground and knees bent was trying and constantly distracting as far as the degrees of pain around the pin sites, but I will be doing it again on my return journey. Not looking forward to that. It felt so good as soon as I was able to have my legs raised and straight out level again in the wheelchair designed for that purpose which I have brought with me (cost covered by the inclusive surgical and rehabilitation treatment fee).
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I'm still here at home and still lengthening at .667mm/day, as I have every day from December 4th (5th?) except for one. I'm going to keep doing so up to 16 April which is my arrival back in Beijing. Then I'll listen to what Doc has to say. There's only the two male foreign patients in Beijing now. The last height measurement I've had was 177cm lying along the floor, so I would be less than that standing but maybe more than that when this is all finished.
Beijing has seen my March x-rays which are aOK with true alignment.
One complication is apparent. My go a mottled purple colour when I stand or let them dangle to the ground. Sonogram doppler examination determined the absence of any blood clot in my legs as a cause.
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Thanks for the update. I was wondering what was going on with your legs.
Yikes! :o I hope that blood clotting issue isn't as serious as it sounds to me.
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So you did 10cms on tibias?
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How do you explain the external fixators when you try to get through airport security?
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It's Sunday night Australian Eastern Standard time. Tuesday morning about 11am I depart and arrive Beijing airport at 1:05am on Wednesday.
I've just measured myself standing as 178.3 My feet were flat on the ground but my heels were 6-8cm out from the base of the wall
Clearly this is more than 10cm extension from my start of 167 which boggles my mind because I stuck to what I've been told many times is .667mm daily, and I can't see how there's been enough days since December 4 to get up that high. 130 days * .667 = less than 9cm; not 11.5 or so :o
Clearly the doc will direct me to cease lengthening once I've had my xray on Wednesday. Then there will 20 days of passive consolidation until the operation to remove these leg frames. After that will be 20 days recommended (14 days minimum) of postoperative observation of the limb function. Maybe early June or very end of May is when I can return home for the task of final recuperation: consolidation without the frames over several months.
I do wonder if any leg length discrepancy will be found that requires finetuning. I don't sense it.
Somehow I neglected to specify that my FEET were the body part experiencing bad circulation symptoms. Well that's alleviated at least some. They still go a deeper colour, with mottled appearance, than the rest of my leg when I stand. I take slow steps in the walking frame.
Two foreign patients remain in Beijing. The first has stopped his lengthening at 6.5cm to go back to college in Canada and would be flying homewards in just two weeks time. The other, an American who started at 5'3 during January, must be nearing to his goal of 9cm. Him being left all alone during June may be a possibility due to the lack of urgency to recruit other foreign patients. Their hands are full as it is with the number of local patients they are dealing with from the many regions of China that have a genuine need for skeletal correction and extension.
There is a very good promotional video which shows what they have done to alleviate various patients (child and adult) of their ambulatory problems. I've seen it playing on a wallmounted plasma screen but it's not on the internet - which would be a good idea. The extra $ foreign elective patients pay really isn't for the financial benefit of the directors and senior medics of that place: it funds the expansion of the accommodation and treatment facilities which serve genuinely disabled people and their supporting family members who may come from distant provinces. See, I had one of the rooms with a complete view of the internal car park and I didn't count any BMWs.
They really need a pet cat or feral cat or pet something there because it's beneficial to those who may stay and work there, and for the animal itself. I've been told they used to years before but they don't now. There were cats who would come inside and pace down the corridors and enter peoples' rooms. Every hospital and nursing home anywhere should have at least one pet animal.
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Are you sure Xia/Li/Peng/Wang aren't making bank off the foreigners? I saw a Lexus and other expensive cars parked out front when I was there. Maybe the decline in business has forced them to cut back.
Congratulations on gaining more height than you thought you would. It was always the opposite back in 2007 with pin bending and muscle resistance. Have you had an x-ray taken to have the gap measured just to be sure?
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"How do I explain the external fixators going through airport security?"
Do I need to? All I need to do is show them and they will handwand for metal detection rather than wheel me through the whole body scanner. Someone concluding that it may be my attempt to introduce a weapon onto a commercial aircraft would be extremely perverse (Headline: 'Kuala Lumpur customs officials insensitive to wheelchair passenger'), and in any case I have very specific treatment letters from the hospital.
If the question is what explanation do I give as to what they are doing on my legs the answer is that the dialturning action has extended the bone and everything else around it by several inches since December last year in a process of stretching and remodelling. I say this from behind so as to be able to catch them when they faint.
If they ask why, it goes like this:
"Have you ever heard the description 'tall, dark and handsome'?"
"Sure, yes. Many times."
"Ever noticed what's always first??" 8)
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Are you sure Xia/Li/Peng/Wang aren't making bank off the foreigners? I saw a Lexus and other expensive cars parked out front when I was there. Maybe the decline in business has forced them to cut back.
Congratulations on gaining more height than you thought you would. It was always the opposite back in 2007 with pin bending and muscle resistance. Have you had an x-ray taken to have the gap measured just to be sure?
You may see all manner of models in the public car park adjoining the main street from which visitors come and go, but from those accorded the privilege to park offstreet in the interior courtyard (which would be senior medical staff, wouldn't you think?) right under the nose of their own workstations and offices it looks more like a little above average than millionaire's row.
Also it occurs to me that when you spend your days trying to find ways for people from ordinary, even peasant, financial backgrounds not to have to live with the consequences of curved spines and legs and knees splayed out at up to 180 degrees for what remains of their lives, then that doesn't dispose you to becoming a moneygrubber.
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Nobody parked in the interior courtyard in 2007, so I can't comment on who parks there and who parks in front today.
Everyone thought they were greedy back in 2007 though. C12 even made Ronne cry after he berated her about overcharging him.
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Yes there's a carpark of about a dozen spaces in the interior courtyard. Its for selected employees and service vehicles as well as anyone with a good enough reason (eg. transporting a nonambulatory patient). A large part of my life so far this year and the end of last has been peeking out that window at what comes and goes while I wait for the next opportunity to spin the dial.
Whoever C12 was, they sound like the of the Month, considering no-one is withheld from what the costs are and what is and is not covered in advance of them hopping on a plane to Beijing.
Should anyone have the right to act all shocked and offended when they discover they're up to $hell out more than the equivalent Chinese taxpayer? I say no, even if they could be so naive. Why else do so many people take out travellers health insurance other than that your Medicare card loses its magical property once your flight has cleared the runway (duh!) and foreigners always have to pay their full way in a foreign health system: here in Australia + anywhere else I've ever been or heard of.
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Can anyone tell me who is actually winning the Syrian Civil War these days? That thing was in an unresolved state when I first went over to Beijing, then while I was there the second Geneva talks led to only limited improvements. Now I'm going back with it seeming no closer to an end. Depresses me. :'( The sadness of it.
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Nobody is winning, everyone is losing.
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The Syrian Civil War remains unresolved and won't be over for many months if not years. The Assad regime is still in control and people are dying there. It's a total mess and God Bless them that some miracle will happen.
For LL it means Dr Salameh can't do surgery there for 10k Euros. Don't think it matters now that we know that there are other Doctors who do external for the same price range.
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I've arrived back in Beijing and I'm at the Guangji hospital. During my absence the leaves have returned to the trees. Our other foreign patients are getting about with walking frames and Dr Zhao has pushed the bumps out of my upper shins and retightened the frame attachments. That was a torture and right after I was too afraid to roll over or bend my right knee. Then I met a sixteen year old boy from Ningxia province who can't walk and whose grandmother is thin lady pretty obviously from a peasant/farmer background and who is the carer for him because his parents split up and went away to do their own things. :'( Thus I wrote a memo to myself to man the f**k up and not display my daily own adversities as anything that should be thought of as big.
Yesterday I've stopped lengthening and in this morning had an xray to determine the extent of what that has been. This afternoon the doc will schedule me for the blessed date when these contraptions come of my legs.
My walking frame did not make it with me all the way. It missed the flight and will be available for pickup from the airport tomorrow.
An interesting development is that they have even more foreign patients, at least two, who are at a better provisioned hospital where it costs more to stay. Maybe I won't even get to meet them, but the two other patients here did.
It's a great time of year here and good to have left the onset of Autumn where I was.
Years ago when the protests in Syria turned into a war I thought it wouldn't be long till another dictator fell and that would be a good expression of people power. But neither has that happened nor has it looked likely to come to a voluntary end while year bleeds over to year. Now I just want someone, anyone, to roll over the other side decisively and have an end to it all.
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To Medium and any others who have been to Dr Xia's Institute in Beijing, there is a man I refer to as Mr Jing who does the driving when a patient has to leave the hospital. As you can imagine, I've spent a lot of time with him on the way to medical attention outside the hospital. He formerly worked at the hospital but now he is retired and the nurses and maids all know him very well because of a long time that they previously spent working with him.
I expected Mr Jing to be at the airport to pick me up yesterday but it transpires he is in Szechuan so I didn't get to give him the gift I had for him. He has a spry and upbeat nature and he also sneaks a cigarette now and then.
I just wanted to ask if any of y'all remember him or have any nice stories about him. I hope that he's feeling a boost out of his spring holiday and I hope that I get to see him again before I leave.
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There's a chapter in Fear and Lengthening about going shopping with him:
http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=84.msg6906#msg6906
I remember keeping a blanket with the Air China logo on it from my flight to Beijing the whole time I was there for my nail removal. When we went back to the airport I held up the blanket as a way of communicating to him which terminal we should go to for my return flight to America. :)
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Limb lengthening patients here travel in wheelchairs which hold the legs straight out ahead. Today I changed to a more normal sort of wheelchair where the feet rest on horizontal paddles with the lower leg vertical. I was inspired to go twice there and back to the Tesco supermarket which is half a kilometer away.
Two months ago when I left for home every patient was from Szechuan province, and now everyone is from Ningxia. Those regions are quite far from here which underlines the national reputation for expertise that this place has in lower limb deformity correction.
There is a significant expansion here which has not been comprehended by me before today. When I left in February they were close to making a elevator operational to get to the first floor. Today I travelled in that lift for the first time and up there I discovered new ward and rooms practically ready for occupation above the length of both wards here and the offices linking the two. Now this is not to say that lower limb deformity correction will double here, as I suspect they will be used for the other operations of the venue which include treating conditions unrelated to lower limb surgery.
I've now being formally directed by the doc to quit lengthening, having passed the limit of 8cm which was originally agreed to. Mission Accomplished :D He can have his Sidchrome spanner back. Next I await to be told of the scheduled date for the removal of these frames which I expect to be 14-21 days from now. And the x-ray confirmed my extended legs are of precisely equal lengths, which is another relief.
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Here is a depiction of the gap in the frame resulting from lengthening with one of the common model Nokia phones shown for scale. This was taken only a couple of days before stopping.
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Its been two weeks since I stopped lengthening which gives a further week to the time that these leg frames come off. Then I will be taken to the other hospital I have heard to be about 40 minutes away. There's no internet for patients there.
This morning I took such a long time to go from my bed to the bathroom and the lesson is that inactivity is not so good for healing as it has brought upon weakening at the very top of the shin just below the knees. It was the feeling of being the most crippled since the nine prelengthening days prior to my first operation. I am back to grabbing at these frames to move my legs from step to step which is another way of saying that my legs feel too heavy to lift with their own power. I've addressed this setback by purloining a roller chair with a higher seat.
Extra height is more difficult to manage.
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just hang in there warrior))!!
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I will get to see this other hospital which is an hour's drive away about Beijing. I will leave the Fengtai site on Tuesday or Wednesday and be there only 3 or 4 days. The American patient who has been there recently gave a bad report of it: that he resorted to buying his own meals, that he woke up screaming from the wearing off of his anaesthesia, and that the living conditions were cramped and stuffy. It also has no internet service.
I'm told that I will be given an epidural. Whether that's anaesthesia or analgesia, it means blocking the transmission of signals through nerve fibers in or near the spinal cord.
It's now more than 20 days post lengthening and therefore time to strip these leg cages away and give the legs a chance at a greater range of motion. It been the experience of feeling both of my legs pierced by arrows which has been done in a controlled, surgical way.
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Congratulations on being so close to finishing your journey.
This other hospital, do you know what its purpose is? Is there overflow from Guang Ji?
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The Guangji Hospital will not exist much longer as a venue for limb lengthening and correction. It is all going to be done at the new centre somewhere in a medical city that is a place I have never been to. My surgery to remove the leg cages was a little over a week ago at a public hospital that is associated with Qinghua University. Casts have been made of my legs and I now have custom fitted moulds which, though added weight, aid the stability of the knees. 5 June I will leave for home with a new wheelchair and whatever other aids (crutches, walking stalks, walking frame) that will suit me.
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Congrats Thegosis!
When did you have the initial surgery? How much did you gain? Is the new facility close to Beijing?
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My original planned departure of 5 June had to be put off for treatment of infection and removal of one of the fixing screws below the right knee. Now that has all been dealt with and the screw replaced in surgery on Wednesday at an upmarket hospital on the other side of Beijing. I don't know the name. Tonight is my last sleep at the Guangji Hospital in Fengtai District of Beijing very close now to 7 months since I first arrive here. I depart the country in the early hours of 22 June with an intramedullary rod in either tibia.
It will be a while till I stand and walk because practising either has been forbidden as a strategy of the infection treatment. I may be the last foreign patient ever to be accommodated at the Guangji Hospital for this cosmetic procedure because my two remaining buddies left me yesterday and the day before.
I won't see this place again even if I am coming back in more than a year for the same surgeons to remove what they put in.
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Hi Thegosis,
How are you doing now? Any updates regarding walking fitness and regaining range of motion in your knees?
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Hey Thegosis,
I'll be arriving into Beijing on 24 August from OZ for my OP :-)
Wonder which hospital as the invite letter say Guang Ji.
BTW well done hero!
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I still get about with crutches. I've been reconnecting with job agencies and employers I worked for previously and been climbing some ladders to clear things off the roof of my house. I walk half normal pace and balance on either foot only awkwardly. I can squat down all the way to the ground with heels touching the floor and do six or ten of those in a row.
My father died on Saturday in Arizona USA while I'm in Australia. I renewed my US passport because I wanted to go across to see him but now, well, there's my uncle who came down with a heart attack in the last two weeks.
I met my father the first time when I was 19 in 1990 and the last time in 2004. I heard his voice for the final time when I called him from my own rehabilitation hospital bed the week before last. Losing a parent. Empty feeling. Everyone will go through this eventually. Even the Prophet of Islam had to deal with being an orphan at the age of six. He died with all those friends and supporters and a few enemies too.
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I am saddened to hear about your loss, Thegosis. These times are never easy, and I admire your strength to talk about it. My sincere condolences to you an all others who will miss him.
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You never officially stated how many cms you gained, I think you said over 8cms. So how many cms did you actually gain? Im assuming 8cm?
Do you have any knee pain or discomfort atm?
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Sorry for your loss Thegosis. My dad just spent about a month in the hospital and finally went home last week. I thought he wasn't going to make it.
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My deepest condolence to you! Your dad is going to a much better place...
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Mohammed also married a 9 year old little girl and raped her so that doesn't mean anything. It's all a fairy tale.
Sorry for your loss and be thankful that you managed so well during this process.
It took me 6 months just to squat.
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Careful, Sweden... don't want to become the next target for ISIS.
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Careful, Sweden... don't want to become the next target for ISIS.
It's 2 late for that. They are already here in Sweden.
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8cm. Knees still getting stronger. Getting past the bump on my R shin that had brought out a noticeable limp. Running at about 7km/hr on the treadmill. Now beyond any doctors restrictions on work.
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http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-3-M8rqxsgO.jpg (http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-3-M8rqxsgO.jpg)
]http://picpaste.com/Screenshot__6_-d4B5f271.jpg[url]
(http://picpaste.com/Screenshot__6_-d4B5f271.jpg[url)http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-4__1_-j9lBqGyJ.jpg[/url]
(http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-4__1_-j9lBqGyJ.jpg)
The first and third of these are my right leg xrayed on 29 December last year
The other is the same but from 18 October. Two months+ earlier.
Please give me your remarks and observations about shape, healing, progress etc
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Looking good. The fibula looks bent inward in one of them, but I doubt that matters and maybe it'll even go away with more consolidation.
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according to dr bagirov, doesnt matter..
as long as the top and bottom of fibula are fixated....
cos fibula is not that important bone..
only serves some ankle functions.
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Actually the screenshot is the other (ie. left) leg from October 18 of 2014
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The report for the December 29 Xrays is a big double thumbs up:
"Comparison with examination obtained in October demonstrates an ongoing healing of the fibular osteotomies, the density of the left tibial cortex has continued to improve. There are no features of loosening. Similar improvement is present on the right, the fibular osteotomy has continued to increase. There is no evidence of loosening.
Comment: Satisfactory alignment, no evidence of loosening, progressive improvement in cortical density."
As this is all so encouraging and I've been able to hit 9km/h for short spurts on the treadmill my current thinking is to go for PRECICE2 femurs with Dr Suhas Shah in Mumbai without hesitation. Soon .. like as soon as I can get a visa.
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Congratulations on your progress, Thegosis! I am very happy for you! Also, I can't wait to here about your femur lengthening joinery!
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http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-3-M8rqxsgO.jpg (http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-3-M8rqxsgO.jpg)
http://picpaste.com/Screenshot__6_-d4B5f271.jpg[url]]]http://picpaste.com/Screenshot__6_-d4B5f271.jpg[url]
(http://picpaste.com/Screenshot__6_-d4B5f271.jpg[url=http://)http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-4__1_-j9lBqGyJ.jpg[/url]
(http://picpaste.com/dyxrays29dec14-page-4__1_-j9lBqGyJ.jpg)
The first and third of these are my right leg xrayed on 29 December last year
The other is the same but from 18 October. Two months+ earlier.
Please give me your remarks and observations about shape, healing, progress etc
im one month plus post op
my fibula is empty but callus formation at tibia
is this normal
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I really don't know IML. My second op (remove frames and insert nail) was around 18 May. So that is 5 months from then till the October xrays of mine. Yes there was an xray taken of me in June (I remember it being a painful drama to stand upright) but that came out fine and it was not shared with me. Somewhere it may be in Beijing.
Sorry to be so useless. If you can get your heel and forefoot flat on the ground at the same time you would seem to be ahead of me at that stage. Externally, that is.
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I really don't know IML. My second op (remove frames and insert nail) was around 18 May. So that is 5 months from then till the October xrays of mine. Yes there was an xray taken of me in June (I remember it being a painful drama to stand upright) but that came out fine and it was not shared with me. Somewhere it may be in Beijing.
Sorry to be so useless. If you can get your heel and forefoot flat on the ground at the same time you would seem to be ahead of me at that stage. Externally, that is.
in other words you dont have early x-rays? (eg 1-2 month post op)
yeah i can walk well and dorsiflexion/bend my feet upwards (proximally) to 70 degrees...'
just worried about the fibula healing, thnks anw!
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I won't be adding to this thread unless it's an observation about Beijing. Reason being that I'm on to part II: preparing for internal PRECICE femurs with Dr Suhas Shah of Mumbai any time from February 2015. That diary has just been commenced here: http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=1663.0 (http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=1663.0)
Oh maybe some day not before December 2016 I'll go back there to get the Orthofix nails and screws out of my tibiae. Maybe never also.
Zaijian till then.