Frames on Television

One of the myriad advantages non-school nights have over school nights is the ability to stay up longer (coupled with the lack of work which needs to be done and the knowledge that you can wake up considerably later the next morning, they're wonderful).  I don't do anything particularly extreme to take advantage of my Fridays and Saturdays. Ignore homework, watch a couple episodes of television, relax in my big black leather corner chair under a heavy coating of blanket.

Well, last night I watched the local news with my parents (after experiencing the spectacular final half of the 1936 production Dracula's Daughter—gotta love the 1930s). And during the news, they listed some of the stories Nightline would be covering that night.

One story was about a women who endured a controversial series of surgeries to grow 14 inches.

I took that to mean one of two things: 1) hormone modifications or 2) external fixators.

As I think I've mentioned before, external fixators can be used to help badly broken bones heal by holding them in place with the pins. They can also be used to straighten limbs and to lengthen limbs, as I'll be doing (straightening the leg plus gaining a half-inch to even the two legs out).

The story was about a woman, Tiffanie DiDonato, who used external fixators to grow fourteen inches. At age eight, she had her legs extended by four inches and also had frames to lengthen her arms. According to Nightline, four inches is the recommended maximum amount of limb extension to be gained from one round of frames. But at age fifteen, she had another set of frames placed on her legs, extending the legs by a further ten inches. Which is a lot. Then she wrote a memoir, which I'm thinking of reading after my frames are on.

Now, the way Nightline chooses to describe external fixators is "extremely painful, risky and controversial" (without, for some reason I cannot fathom, mentioning the words "external fixator" or "frame" once in the story). This is in the context of limb lengthening, granted, but still. First off, I was unaware of there being any controversy over the frames. My best guess as to why I would be unaware of this supposed controversy is because frames, as medical devices, are really not all that well-known. Furthermore, all of the people they talk to in the program are dwarfs who had limb extensions a long time ago—since DiDonato is 32 now, that means she had her final frame placed 17 years ago, in 1995. Medicine, like all sciences, has made some serious advancements since then. When I was told about the frames, I was told that this was a very low-risk procedure, though it would be notably uncomfortable, the frame would probably be infected at some point, and so on. Which is to say, I question Nightline's conclusions about the riskiness of the procedure. Then again, I'm not having my leg lengthened by all that much, so we'll see. However, my bones will be broken and forced to regrow in the way the surgeons want, so perhaps my situation is vaguely similar to hers? Not as extreme, but shades of similarity.

The second part of the story to comment on is its depiction of the pain associated with the frames. They talk about the pain as being "excruciating," near-indescribable. Anguish, in other words. While watching the story, my mother asked me several times if I was okay, if I wanted to turn it off. Each time I said I was fine. And I was. The first time I ever heard about external fixators, I read that pin cleaning, a necessity considering the high risk of infection, felt like having your leg having a bath in burning kerosene (once again, see the final section of Stephen King's On Writing). This knowledge presented a considerable hurdle for me to get over before electing to undergo this surgery. Clearly, I weighed the benefits and risks and pain and decided to go through with it. Hearing another story about how painful frames are has not changed my mind in the slightest. First off, try as I might, I can never remember the actual feeling of pain. I can remember sights and sounds and the aftertaste of anesthesia, but never pain (though perhaps that's the considerable amount of Tylenol-3 I've taken post-op talking). In short, maybe it'll hurt. But there will be medicine to fight the pain and the comfort in knowing that I won't remember the pain. The other thing is, if I'm scared of the pain…well, I don't want to be that person who risks decades of movement over a short period of pain.

Furthermore, the story talks about one way DiDonato dealt with pain and discomfort: keeping a journal. Every time I've tried to keep a journal in the past, it hasn't worked out so well. After a couple days of really intense journal-writing, I'd abruptly lose motivation for no reason at all. But there's a reason I started this blog.

Also kind of amusing: Nightline remarking that frames have a "lifetime of consequences." Well, yes. Then again, just about every surgery ever has a lifetime of consequences, though those consequences are often not as pronounced. That phrase, "lifetime of consequences," just sounds so negative, doesn't it? Because, you know what, that lifetime of consequences is exactly why I'm doing the surgery. Yes, maybe there will be complications, maybe everything won't go 100% perfectly, maybe (definitely) I'll gain a new set of lifelong scars (though, to be fair, they showed DiDonato's scars and those scars had faded away to a comforting level). But, as I've said before, according to my surgeon, the risks are minimal. And yet I still anticipate experiencing a lifetime of consequences, consequences like being able to run and move and be active and not worry about getting arthritis and needing a knee replacement when I'm thirty or forty and not being constricted to an office chair in fear that I'll beat up my leg and just not being limited. Rising above the myriad rules I have to follow (no running no stressful jumping watch out for wall sits don't step or stand on your leg funny or your ankle's going to twist).

Those are the consequences I anticipate.

I'm not particularly excited about wearing the frames. I've tried conceptualizing what it will feel like but can't. I'm fairly certain it won't be much fun. Then again, this was never about fun. This was never about now. It's about the totality of my life, the totality of the experience I want to get in my time on Earth. It's about rising above my limitations. And maybe, just maybe, getting to run.