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!