Walking with Osseointegration

Today is 10 days Post surgery of the Osseointegration implant! 10 days! 

I was only in the hospital for 5 days. The first 3 days were supposed to be good days. I was to have an epidural to eliminate the pain in my leg...and hopefully reduce the phantom pains in the future. Well, just my luck, the epidural didn’t really take in my left leg. My right leg was really good and numb, but my left leg had the deep feelings. he implant was placed in my left leg! I was so mad at all the other Osseo patients I encountered that told me the is NO PAIN! There was a fair amount of pain. The pain was not as bad as it sounds like it should be though. On day four, I started loading weight into the implant, starting with 15kg, about 30 lbs. I continued this for 3o minutes twice a day for the next 5 days increasing by 5-10 kg each day. By day four of loading (day 8 post op) I was at 50% of my body weight, which is what is required to start walking. The trick is they will not fit you for a new prosthetic until day 10 post op, so I loaded for a few extra days. 

Day 10: I sat in the Physiotherapy Clinic for 5 hours waiting to get fitted. I volunteered to go last so my prosthetist from Houston had time to make it to the fitting. He now has 6 patients that have the Osseointegration implant. He came to learn more about the prosthetic fitting procedure. 3 of his 6 patients are currently here in Sydney. Generally, if the patient has a C-Leg the prosthetist here will put a “light leg” one you for the first week. The C-Leg weighs a good deal more than most knees. The muscles in my hip and thigh are very weak, they have not really been used in 6 years so a probably wouldn’t complain about a lighter leg. They let me go straight to the C-Leg! I didn’t complain about that either! It felt so different to walk on the implant than on my socket prosthetic. I was able to feel the texture of the carpet and everything that I stepped on. Feeling the vibrations of everything through my femur was so incredible. I was shocked the first time i brushed a towel over the implant. The feeling was so profound. I feel everything. Its going to be a whole new world of feeling in my left leg! 

Heres a video of my first few laps in the parallel bars. 

The best part (other than walking on my leg today) is I have a motor scooter that I am tearing up Sydney on. This thing can move! There is a pretty good hill to climb to get to physiotherapy each day. It would take me 30 minutes to crutch up the hill. The scooter takes in in 5 minutes. 

Australia!!! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Today I am traveling to Sydney, Australia to have a procedure called Osseointegration performed next week. I am so excited about this procedure!!! The standard suction socket prosthetic is getting so painful. See, I have what is called HO. Its like bone spurs on the femur and when I apply pressure into the socket, the bone basically grinds into the socket…ouch.

The Osseointegration procedure that is performed by Dr. Al Muderis in Sydney will eliminate the need for the suction socket, therefore eliminating the pain!  My hope is that my activities will not be as limited as they are with the current socket prosthetic I have. This should improve my walking and I  hopefully I will not get tired as easily. 

I think the hardest part of this experience is going to be not having my puppy for 5 weeks. I know he is in great hands with his doodle friend Hershey. There will be many days of tug-o-war, play fighting, and chasing. My hope is that playing with Hershey will distract him and wear him out so that he doesn’t chew anything in the Beck house like he has been doing at my house. I think he sensed that I would be leaving so he was going to make me pay…I did. I paid for a new pair of boots and a few garments. I did bring a flat Cooper so the pup will be in pictures from Australia! Cooper (@doodnamedcoop) is the black pup and his friend Hershey (@hersheydoodletx) is the brown one.

The plus side to this is I get to see a country I have always wanted to visit!  After the 19 hour flight (I have 5 hours left), I will have doctors appointments on Friday and a weekend of being a tourist before my surgery on February 10^th.  It will be here before I know it!

Sun & Ski

The last month or so have been pretty busy and exciting! Otto Bock has a fitness leg, which is pretty awesome! Otto Bock offers a "demo" of the product. Let's be honest though, when I get to play with something this cool, do you really think I would give it up?

NO!

I tried to find YouTube videos to teach me how to use this new piece of equipment. THERE IS NOT ONE! So it is an experiment.

I obviously have a lot of work to do to get to a jog. I walked 3 miles this weekend with it. It was great, other than the blisters my socket rubbed...ouch!

The ski part of this post is reference to my recent ski trip in Breckenridge, Co. I skied for 3 of the 5 days I was up there with the BOEC program. The instructors are great! It was most certainly a great workout in my quad! It doesn't matter how many squats I do to prepare, it's never enough! This year I skied mostly the blue runs and the even let me try the mogul runs.

Kick ball is possible for the amputee...

This weekend is Homecoming at Sweet Briar, one of the most beautiful campus' in America. As I am making my way back to Sweet Briar, I am reminded of my last week on campus as a student. It was Senior Week, the week after seniors took their finals and the week before graduation. There were events for us everyday. We floated the lake, went to the local Mexican restaurant and had a faculty vs. seniors kickball game, cocktail parties and luncheons, etc.

I was excited to participate in the kickball game. I didn't really know what my role would be, but I knew I was playing. At that time I had a "boring" hydraulic knee...no computer. We decided catcher would be the best position for me and when we were kicking, I would have a runner of my choosing. The game got a little more intense than I thought it would. There was a pretty new, young, male economic professor that joined the faculty and participated in our game. He got on base and even made it to third base. Next thing I know this guy is coming to home plate and it was going to be a close call. Naturally, I kneeled to block the plate as the ball was being thrown to me. The guy slide into home plate ( remember the plate was blocked by my knee, also remember my knee is titanium or something) HEAD FIRST!

The next day at lunch I saw him in the dining hall and had to comment on the giant goose egg just above his eye.

Vacuum Leg

My mom and I tried a new Vietnamese restaurant that had just opened near us since our usual Vietnamese restaurant was closed. We were seated in the sun room type area, it was kinda nice except I think they may have forgotten about us a few times. There was one other little family seated across from us. The little boy was done eating and you know how they get restless when they are bored; he was walking around the tables. I could see his face when he noticed my leg. It looked as if his thoughts were written all over his face. If only! He went to his table and said, "Mom, she has a vacuum cleaner leg!" This mom was one of those moms that used it as an opportunity to teach the little boy. She brought him over to me and asked if I would explain to the little boy what happened. I went through my spill, " My leg was hurt in a car accident and the doctors had to make me a new one."

That little boy sure had an imagination and when you think about it, it kind of does look like one of those little dirt devil vacuums. I would be willing to bet his chores consist of vacuuming.

Lake time!

Yesterday I spent the day floating on the lake with friends. I have a water leg (my old leg) that I use when I am in or near the water. I don't take any chances with my c-leg. I mean I can't really even walk with my cell phone in my hand without dropping it and shattering the screen. I can only imagine tripping and falling in the water with my c-leg on. I don't think Otto Bock has an AppleCare type policy to replace my knee!

I switched legs at the car and headed to the water. Before we got in the water, two little boys walked passed us and one waved. They walked down the sidewalk a little ways and turned around and walked back past us. The older one said, "hi" this time. I asked him if he was having fun in the water? He said, "what happened to your leg?" He was so funny the way he asked. He just had a comical expression. I told him, " I was in a really bad car accident and my leg got hurt really bad and the doctors made me a new one." He said, "So you don't feel it." I said, "No." He proceeded to touch my toes and poke my leg in several spots asking if I could feel it. I continued to say, "No, not at all." He said he was never going to drive in the dark again. I asked him when he has driven in the dark and what happened? He has a little car that he drives and he hit a tree once.

We floated for several hours, I was getting out and jumping in just fine. I switched to floating with my legs hanging off the float and after a little while,I felt a cage like thing with my foot and freaked out. I fell off my floaty and was flailing in the water. Ryan, asked me if I took my leg off the last time I had gotten out? I said, "no,I still have it on." I knew I could feel the suction was still there. I felt down and the leg was GONE! The shell had separated from the suction piece. Velcro and water are not friends. I freaked out again and started flailing again! Now, after 2 flailing incidents, I have no idea where I was when it came off. I looked at Courtney and Ryan and said we have to start diving! Luckily the water was only about 5 feet deep. I had been trying to avoid touching the bottom, there's just something about the bottom of lakes; they're slimy and you never know what is down there. I had no problem diving down and running my hands across the bottom in search for my leg. Our floats started getting a little to far from us so I swam over to get them and I turn around to head back and I see Courtney and Ryan standing looking at each other and smiling and I hear "did you?" I said,"did you really?" He was tall enough that he could walk around and feel with his feet. Much more efficient than my diving! He reached down and pulled my leg out of the water! I was incredibly lucky! Can you imagine if we had not found it and someone else had found it?

At this point, I decided to take it off and leave it on the side. I was concerned about how I was going to get the two pieces back together so I could walk back to the car, but I have learned that it does no good to worry about the future. I would figure it out when I needed to walk. After we were done playing in the water, I looked at my leg and the Velcro had dried and was still sticking. I put it on and was able to walk fine! I've got to figure out a better system for my water leg. If you have any ideas, I am open to suggestions!

Pedicure Time!

The day I got to take my prosthetic home, I first went to therapy, but on the way home I stopped at the nail shop to get my toes painted. My prosthetic has never been in my house without the toe painted (except when I have to borrow a foot when mine is getting fixed). I have had polish on my toes since i was about 13 when my mom got me hooked on pedicures, it was an expensive mistake for her. The best part is that I get half price pedicures now! That's right I can go in and get my toes and nails done for the price of a pedicure! 

Last weekend I got a pedicure then made the mistake of getting in the pool and all the polish chipped off my "real" nails, so today I went in and got them repainted.