I've just started going through the 44 previous entries on this blog to add labels to all of them. It's been an interesting experience. While at this point I more or less take it for granted that my leg is outfitted with a large, bulky piece of medical equipment, I also take it for granted that my leg is straight. Looking back, it didn't use to be that way.
I've spent so much time recently focusing on what I can't do at the moment, like walk far or run or go outside in the snow, I simply haven't taken the time to realize how far I've come. Between late December 2012 and mid January 2013, my lower right leg was corrected by eleven degrees. The chances of my developing arthritis in the next ten to twenty years have gone down dramatically. I get to look forward to a life of increased activity.
That's really something.
But aside from that moment of quiet, I did want to take the time to address some loose threads from earlier in the existence of this blog…
1) The back-story updates: I'll finish those up eventually. I'm on spring break until the end of the month, and should have the time to at least make a solid dent in those.
2) The update on wheelchair accessibility at school. I've spent a lot of time thinking about all the particular details. While my experience is particular to the one building of my high school, the entry should (or at least could) be a worthwhile venture.
3) An update on pin care and getting clean with the frame. For the issue I was most preoccupied with before the surgery, I really haven't written much about my actual experiences with pin care, mostly because my actual experiences with pin care have been fairly non-dramatic. This will be rectified shortly.
And as for things I mentioned earlier and then never mentioned again…
I finished knitting my blanket. It is large and very bright and rather warm. I haven't woven in the ends of all the various strands of yarn, but still. It's mostly done and, at some ridiculous square footage, is an accomplishment I'm rather proud of.
For a while, I'd been wearing contact lenses. Then came the frame. I haven't worn contacts in months, though hopefully that changes soon.
Rhino the Hippopotamus has kept me company in the corner chair, which for the purposes of this blog I have rechristened Recovery Chair.
Sunny the Golden Retriever remains quite fond of his couch.
Way back in October and November, I kept mentioning my progress in Stephen King's The Stand. In the next calendar year, I can confirm that I did, in fact, finish the book.
In other things which I am done with, my walker currently resides in the trunk of either the minivan or my father's car and I have not seen it since the start of break.
With the frame now mostly taken care of, my next adventure is the college process. I'll be hearing back starting tomorrow all through the end of the month, it looks like. Well, that and catching back up to speed on this blog.
Oh! in a final note for this entry, my mother got me a towel with a Ferris wheel on it today…it is currently one of my favorite things ever, mostly because I'm immensely fond of Ferris wheels.
Showing posts with label rhino the hippopotamus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rhino the hippopotamus. Show all posts
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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 |
 |
| Looking almost inoffensive… |
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. |
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) |
Thanks to this frame, it won't look like that any more.
Backstory 3: A First Attempt at Straight Legs
A note: I started drafting this entry before my most recent surgery, with the intent to post at some point before Christmas Eve. Obviously, that didn't happen…as it turns out, there's rather a lot of information I want to cover, which makes these silly things take a while to write. Coupled with a startling lack of downtime the first part of winter break and my good intentions to keep up with this blog remained just that: intentions, not acted upon. I still intend to finish out the backstory aspect of Leg+Frame, though, mostly because, while the frame itself is disappointingly boring so far, there are still some interesting leg-related occurrences on the horizon, such as my returning to more normal activities like academic pursuits and track.
So, then, backstory round three:
A FIST ATTEMPT AT STRAIGHT LEGS
The first surgery was relatively straightforward to deal with, aside from the cast and spending the night in the hospital with a roommate whose mother listened to the television at full volume quite literally all night and living with the wheelchair for a limited time.
Though round one was relatively simple, round two was less so.
I can't remember the exact chain of events leading up to my return to the operating room a year and a half later in November 2004. I'm sure there was the normal string of doctor's appointments and x-rays and discussions between my parents and Dr. Abel. As for me, the path which leads to my return trip to the operating room consists of two major memories.
One. Fall day. I'm at a soccer field, dressed in uniform. For a few years between lower and middle school, I played for a recreational soccer team, mostly sticking to defense, except for one rainy stint as offense in which I stubbornly kept running towards my team's goal and a briefer, sunnier stint in the goal in which I actually managed to block a shot. This was when running was not a forbidden activity, of course. But, returning to the larger narrative at hand, during a break in one game I was talking to my father about the upcoming procedure. He mentioned Dr. Abel's mentioning that there had been some medical advances which made him feel comfortable in performing the operation.
These advances were related to the plates which were going into my knees.
Dr. Sundberg, my orthopedic surgeon here in Minnesota, said that if I was still growing (which, based on the height measurement from my pre-op appointment, I still might be, albeit very, very slowly (or there could have been a fluke of measurement)), he would put a plate in my knee to straighten my leg. The funny thing is, I've done that already. It worked on the left leg—that one's straight, the weight-bearing axis goes exactly where it ought to go. With the right leg, well…I'll get to that in a later post.
The other memory I have leading up to the procedure is of walking with my mother either into or out of KCRC. She was telling me about how this surgery wasn't like the last one. The last one, all they had to cut through was skin. This time, they'd need to cut through muscle. It was much more serious.
As my mother was telling me about how this surgery was going to be more serious, I felt a little nervous. But not very. I had no clue what, exactly, all this meant in practical terms. Yes, they would be cutting through muscle. But would it hurt more? Would it take longer to recover? Would I be stuck in the wheelchair for a greater expanse of time?
Still, when it came time to drive to the hospital, I wasn't quite as relaxed as I had been a year and a half earlier. Not scared, per se, but not the calmest, either. I had a better idea of what I was in for, the scent of the anesthesia, the vomiting, the feeling of being frozen as I waited to regain my limbs in the recovery room.
It did not help matters when we had to wait for what felt like hours for a hospital bed to be available for me so the surgery could get underway.
During that waiting period, Dr. Abel came back to have one final conversation with me and my parents about the procedure. He'd been thinking about the surgery, he said, and wanted to change some things. I can't remember the full list of what was changed, but I can recall that list being an impressive one (to me).
There is another noteworthy detail from that conversation. Now, for comfort, I'd brought a stuffed hippopotamus with me to the hospital. Prior to this conversation with Dr. Abel, the hippo was unnamed.
Dr. Abel walks into the room for the pre-op conversation and more or less the first thing he says is, "Nice rhinoceros."
The name stuck: Rhino the Hippopotamus, who has now become the good-luck charm I've brought to all subsequent surgeries, including the placing of the frame a week ago.
Very shortly thereafter, I was wheeled back to the operating room.
With the first surgery, I couldn't remember anything about actually being put to sleep. Not so with round two. I can very clearly remember being wheeled back to the operating room, passing other operating rooms and seeing the tiny windows on their doors and thinking, 'There are people getting cut up in there' and also thinking, 'I am never, never going to be a surgeon.' I can remember being wheeled into my operating room and having the operating room staff joking about Dr. Abel's knowledge of large African mammals. While joking, they were projecting my x-rays up on computer monitors. The atmosphere may have been friendly but the purpose was serious.
Then somebody moved me from the transport bed to the operating room table beneath operating room lights (perhaps the most imposing kind of lights there are), slipped a gas mask over my face and the smell of anesthesia (just like airplane gas) arrived. I didn't immediately fall asleep, which worried me, but before too long, I was out and the operation itself began.
So, then, backstory round three:
A FIST ATTEMPT AT STRAIGHT LEGS
The first surgery was relatively straightforward to deal with, aside from the cast and spending the night in the hospital with a roommate whose mother listened to the television at full volume quite literally all night and living with the wheelchair for a limited time.
Though round one was relatively simple, round two was less so.
I can't remember the exact chain of events leading up to my return to the operating room a year and a half later in November 2004. I'm sure there was the normal string of doctor's appointments and x-rays and discussions between my parents and Dr. Abel. As for me, the path which leads to my return trip to the operating room consists of two major memories.
One. Fall day. I'm at a soccer field, dressed in uniform. For a few years between lower and middle school, I played for a recreational soccer team, mostly sticking to defense, except for one rainy stint as offense in which I stubbornly kept running towards my team's goal and a briefer, sunnier stint in the goal in which I actually managed to block a shot. This was when running was not a forbidden activity, of course. But, returning to the larger narrative at hand, during a break in one game I was talking to my father about the upcoming procedure. He mentioned Dr. Abel's mentioning that there had been some medical advances which made him feel comfortable in performing the operation.
These advances were related to the plates which were going into my knees.
Dr. Sundberg, my orthopedic surgeon here in Minnesota, said that if I was still growing (which, based on the height measurement from my pre-op appointment, I still might be, albeit very, very slowly (or there could have been a fluke of measurement)), he would put a plate in my knee to straighten my leg. The funny thing is, I've done that already. It worked on the left leg—that one's straight, the weight-bearing axis goes exactly where it ought to go. With the right leg, well…I'll get to that in a later post.
The other memory I have leading up to the procedure is of walking with my mother either into or out of KCRC. She was telling me about how this surgery wasn't like the last one. The last one, all they had to cut through was skin. This time, they'd need to cut through muscle. It was much more serious.
As my mother was telling me about how this surgery was going to be more serious, I felt a little nervous. But not very. I had no clue what, exactly, all this meant in practical terms. Yes, they would be cutting through muscle. But would it hurt more? Would it take longer to recover? Would I be stuck in the wheelchair for a greater expanse of time?
Still, when it came time to drive to the hospital, I wasn't quite as relaxed as I had been a year and a half earlier. Not scared, per se, but not the calmest, either. I had a better idea of what I was in for, the scent of the anesthesia, the vomiting, the feeling of being frozen as I waited to regain my limbs in the recovery room.
It did not help matters when we had to wait for what felt like hours for a hospital bed to be available for me so the surgery could get underway.
During that waiting period, Dr. Abel came back to have one final conversation with me and my parents about the procedure. He'd been thinking about the surgery, he said, and wanted to change some things. I can't remember the full list of what was changed, but I can recall that list being an impressive one (to me).
There is another noteworthy detail from that conversation. Now, for comfort, I'd brought a stuffed hippopotamus with me to the hospital. Prior to this conversation with Dr. Abel, the hippo was unnamed.
Dr. Abel walks into the room for the pre-op conversation and more or less the first thing he says is, "Nice rhinoceros."
The name stuck: Rhino the Hippopotamus, who has now become the good-luck charm I've brought to all subsequent surgeries, including the placing of the frame a week ago.
Very shortly thereafter, I was wheeled back to the operating room.
With the first surgery, I couldn't remember anything about actually being put to sleep. Not so with round two. I can very clearly remember being wheeled back to the operating room, passing other operating rooms and seeing the tiny windows on their doors and thinking, 'There are people getting cut up in there' and also thinking, 'I am never, never going to be a surgeon.' I can remember being wheeled into my operating room and having the operating room staff joking about Dr. Abel's knowledge of large African mammals. While joking, they were projecting my x-rays up on computer monitors. The atmosphere may have been friendly but the purpose was serious.
Then somebody moved me from the transport bed to the operating room table beneath operating room lights (perhaps the most imposing kind of lights there are), slipped a gas mask over my face and the smell of anesthesia (just like airplane gas) arrived. I didn't immediately fall asleep, which worried me, but before too long, I was out and the operation itself began.
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