::Griffblog::

Day1

I don’t think I’ve mentioned in any of my previous musings the great support and advice I have received from a Yahoo Group set up for those of us going through this procedure. These fixators are commonly used for complex fractures and not just leg lengthening.

The group allowed me to ask all those questions that you either never get time to ask or never occur to ask when you have the brief facetime with your surgeon and meant that I was far better prepared than I would otherwise have been, had suitable clothing at hand and knew exactly what to expect. As mine is a full length femoral frame the top ring is a half ring, I have seen pictures and know that. But on my last pre-op appointment a junior doctor showed me a femoral frame with the aforementioned half-ring and told me to ignore that, she passed it off as a carrying handle for the fixator as it was for demo purposes, you couldn’t make it up could you!

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My op last Friday went ahead as planned and 6 days later (yesterday) I was released home. I now sport a rather gruesome looking femoral ilizarov fixator frame worth a cool £6k!

It’s taking some major adjustments of course and it still very early days but I’m doing my very best to remain positive.  I had the Op 9am Friday morning which took 6hrs and arrived on the ward at 4.30pm.  Saturday was spent in bed but Sunday I was walking to the shower using a frame which is amazing progress given the operation.

The frame itself has 4 rings and stretches from high on my hip to my knee.  Mid-way is the adjustment section with 4 long threaded bolts that will be used for the lengthening procedure which begins next Tuesday. This is simple, each adjuster is turned a set number of times every day to achieve 1mm distraction per day. As I have 25mm of bone to grow it should take a month if the bone grows at the expected 1mm/day. We get shown what to do on Tuesday and then it is down to us to do at home each day!

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A few people have asked what brought all this about.  I’d forgot that the background and explanation to my leg issues had been lost when blog Mk1 went belly up without a backup so here is a quick summary:

Back in 1989 I had an accident whilst serving in HM Forces in Germany.  Long and short of that was I ended up with a fractured spine, punctured lung and a snapped femur,

The back was fixed with some metal scaffolding which I still sport, lung hole had a puncture repair and my leg was repaired with a full length internal nail down the shaft of the femur that was removed a few years later.

However, the leg repair, having been done in haste (I was understandably very ill at the time) left me with a loss of 2.5cm of bone from the femur and a severe rotation such that my foot points outwards about 30 degrees.  End result is hip, knee and back pain and a limp and an odd walking gait.

Fast forwards 20yrs and I resolved with increasing pain it was time I got it looked at properly rather than just treating the symptoms.  After a few referrals I saw a specialist and was told the solution is an ‘Ilizarov’ frame, named after the Russian Doctor who invented it. Designed for complex fracture repair and most importantly limb length discrepancy i.e. to ‘grow’ bone and lengthen limbs.

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As you can see from the countdown clock on the right, there are now less than two days remaining before my day on the operating table.

Up until now I’ve been excited that it was finally happening and desperate to get the Op over with and begin the lengthening and then healing process.  i didn’t think I’d have any worries or fears until perhaps the day before at most. I was wrong!

As this week has progressed I’m ever more conscious of how big a step this is, it isn’t like getting your tonsils remove, this is serious stuff and whereas with most procedures, where you awake and start getting better, I’m going to awake feeling a whole lot worse and it’s going to be 3-4 mths of pain at least before it starts getting better.

I’m sure all these doubts and worries will dissappear once I’ve had the frame fitted and know what it is I have to deal with but right now there seems so much to consider and I can prepare for none of it because I don’t know how big the scaffolding is!

So I’ve bought a pair of svelte runners shorts that I’m hoping I can stretch to get on and at least provide me with some modesty in the first few days as well as some very chic baggy pyjama pants and tracksuit bottoms.  I’m gonna be target numero uno for the fashion police!

RouteBuddy and Ordnance Survey have released 1:50k maps compatible with RouteBuddy’s iPhone Atlas Application.

The maps, priced from £9.99 each cover the Ordnance Survey Landranger map series with over 200 to choose from with complete coverage of the UK.

These 1:50k maps join the 1:25k Explorer map tiles already available in RouteBuddy’s Online Map Store.

The RouteBuddy Atlas iPhone App is available for download free from the iTunes App Store and allows the loading and display of OS maps with full support for the 3GS compass and GPS features. Atlas is also compatible with iPod Touch but no GPS features are available on these models.

Maps purchased from RouteBuddy can be loaded from either a Mac or a PC onto the iPhone using a superbly simple iPhone server feature.

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