In Which I Meet the Frame

As should be fairly clear, it has been far, far too long since I wrote on this blog despite (I assure you) the best of intentions. As promised, the surgery was December 26, starting at roughly 9:00 AM and ending about noon. Heading into the procedure, my leg bore no Taylor Spatial Frame. Leaving the procedure, despite my unspoken hopes, wishes, aspirations, etc., my leg bore one very new, very attached Taylor Spatial Frame. At which point the blisters I got from my Christmas walk exploded in the most dramatic way possible, I got to experience the effects of narcotics first-hand, went through my first pin site cleaning (more on that later), eventually had all the tubes removed from my body, felt free, got clean and went home on New Year's Eve to our annual viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. At which point the deadline for college applications reared its ugly head and now, at last, free of things I need to do, I have time to relax, recover, and write the blog updates I've been meaning to write for a week or more now but haven't actually written.

First up: the surgery proper.

Truth be told, it wasn't the most exciting of mornings. I got up around six, we left the house shortly thereafter, drove to St. Paul, struggled to find a parking spot. Then we were checked in, rapidly whisked off to the pre-op waiting area, visited by the anesthesiologist and surgeon. Then it was off to the OR for the procedure proper.

The fuller version to report is that, for the first time, I got some say in how my surgery was handled. For all of my previous surgeries, I was under eighteen. This surgery, at a whopping eighteen years of age, I was legally able to dictate my own fate. Practically speaking, this means I repeated whatever my parents said—my father, after all, is a transplant surgeon with something like ten thousand years of medical training and my mother practiced as a nurse in the intensive care unit for a while. Most of this dictation came in handy during my initial encounter with the anesthesiologist (who, it should be noted, was simply incredible—on top of being incredibly nice, he did a wonderful job and after the procedure I had not a lick of nausea and no aftertaste from the anesthesia itself).

To set the stage: it is the morning after Christmas. I am nowhere near as groggy as I should be despite not actually having gotten a lot of sleep. I am also very well aware that this surgery is by far and away the most serious surgery I have ever had, which makes me very nervous. I am also very well aware, thanks to previous experience, that one option of going to sleep involves being jabbed with a needle. Needles scare me to no end.

My parents pointed out that I hate the other option, which is the gas mask. This is also true, since the gas mask involves being bombarded with one of my least favorite smells (scratch that: least favorite).

I ask the anesthesiologist if there's some more desirable alternative. After a bit of negotiating, we come up with a game plan: I'll be given some oral medicine in the waiting room which will calm me down considerably. Then, in the OR proper, the IV will be inserted. I agree.

The other discussion to be had prior to my surgery was with the surgeon, Dr. Sundberg, himself, to go over what the procedure would entail, if any modifications should be made, if we understood what was going on. Also, to complete the ever-important step of marking the future surgical sites on my leg with a purple Sharpie. I think, a week post-op, some of those markings still remain.

Now, there are two major things to note from my discussion with the surgeon:

1) Apparently, plans for these procedures are flexible within reason. Given that I was already going to be operated on, I wanted to see if we could possible remove some bone growths. Target number one was the little bother on my ankle which forced me to wear larger boots on my Christmas hike. Dr. Sundberg took one look at the growth I was pointing out and said he would remove it (he did). The other growth I wanted done with was a bit more problematic. It was a massive kneecap-sized thing just beneath the kneecap on my right leg which has given me grief because it made kneeling rather difficult and because I had serious aesthetic issues with it. While Dr. Sundberg couldn't promise to remove it altogether, he did at least reduce it somewhat in size. Since I haven't done a thorough enough investigation of that part of my leg yet, I don't know how reduced it is, but the improvement is substantial.

The large growth beneath my kneecap gets Sharpie'd

The annoying thing on my ankle does not get left out of the Sharpie action

2) Taylor Spatial Frames look considerably less scary when they are not bolted onto your leg. My frame tagged along to the discussion so my parents and I could get a sense of its dimensions and weight before it was attached to me. Here it is, pre-op:

Looking almost inoffensive…

Now, a quick note on how the Taylor Spatial Frame functions: The frame can correct leg deformity in an absurd number of ways. Developed by a math PhD, it has six struts. Each strut can be individually lengthened or shortened. The doctor plugs initial measurements into a computer program and the program then prints out a menu for strut adjustments (for example, my menu includes fifteen days of strut adjustments). The goal is for the two rings on the frame to be parallel by the end. Considering that the frame seen above is set to how my leg was before starting this whole procedure, well…my main thought was, there's a reason I'm doing this.

I also got to try the frame on for size:

Note how the thing doesn't touch my skin. Also, it looks much better without pins, incisions and blood entered into frame.

For those of you wondering how life, such as walking and wearing pants, works while wearing a frame, the answer is that both are doable. On its own, the frame weights about a pound and a half, though with pins added it's probably closer to two pounds. There's a definite weight discrepancy between my legs now, but nothing I won't be able to overcome once I'm weight-bearing. Also, many loose sweatpants will fit over the thing. Since I'm still in the early days of wearing clothes and a frame at the same time (most of my time with this thing has been spent in a hospital gown, which doesn't exactly count as clothing in my book), I can't really offer any particular tips.

With those festivities completed, it was time for me to swallow some decisively non-tasty liquid which would calm me down. Then, as promised, ten to fifteen minutes later, I was wheeled back to the operating room. Compared to November 2004, the first operating room I can remember being wheeled into, I was much calmer. Maybe that was just the drugs talking, or maybe I was just more mature, but the panic wasn't there.

The operating room, from what I can remember, was fairly manageable. I could recognize many of the people in there—the OR nurse, who had come by to see me and reassure me before the procedure, the anesthesiologist and even the lights were merely reasonably bright.

Rhino, the stuffed hippopotamus from all my earlier procedures, wears a hospital wristband around its neck (I've never been able to decide on a satisfactory gender for Rhino). The sticker, at that point seven years old, was fading. I asked my anesthesiologist for a new sticker. He obliged.

I think it was then that I was moved to the operating table proper. I can't remember if somebody else moved me or if they let me move myself. I do remember that my arm was resting on a little swinging extension of the table, which I thought was very cool. With the arm swung out, the anesthesiologist placed some sort of device on my wrist which made a noise like a soda can and sprayed foam on me, numbing the site.

Then the IV went in and the surgery began.

Before the procedure, my legs looked like this:

For bonus accuracy, this picture was taken shortly before heading back into the operating room (or because we forgot to take it earlier)

Every time I see just how crooked the right leg was, I'm stunned.

Thanks to this frame, it won't look like that any more.