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Diary 12
March 7

It is already 2 days after 2nd operation. The operation seemed to have went well with less time and less blood. Though, my conditions are much better compared with the last op, I felt sick yesterday. Now that I have two painful legs, life on bed is extremely difficult. It is not easy to even put an underpants (so, I put small towel to cover my sex).Sleeping at night has also become somewhat difficult, probably because it is difficult to change positions.
Good thing is that pain is small unless I move. Yesterday, I only had 1-2 shots to ease the pain.
I will write more when I get better.

Diary 13
March 10
The picture on the leftside is the rod that is to be implanted in the bone. Drs have kindly provided it for me.
It is already post 2nd op day 4. As I have figured some technique to keep my self not smelly from the experience of last operation, I am not smelly despite it is already a week since last bath. I do not feel sick and pain is minimum (without motion).
Since the 2nd operated leg is not ready to start lengthening yet, I am currently lengthening the 1st leg rather slowly (0.8 mm/day).To minimize the difference of the two operated legs, the doctor has lengthened 4 mm during the operation for the second leg.
Anyway my current concerns are,

1. Suspected moderate contact dermatitis against the bandage. Man! it is itchy! The weak steroid ointment and the weak oral antihistamin helps only a little! I have asked the Dr to stop the bandage because the course of the wound looked good otherwise. And from this morning, I am free of bandage!

2. Abnormal sensation of the first operated leg.The sensation is a spontaneous one with "electric sensation". I have forgotton to mention it before, but I had this problem from the very beginig of the first op. The clinical evidence suggest that the sensory nerve is affected but no abnormality in the motor nerve so far. It has gotten better over the first week but haven`t improved drastically since then. The doctors say that is often seen and need not to worry because it will disappear.
It bothers me a lot not when I am awake, but when I am asleep, it enhances as I keep the leg in one position probably by affecting the certain circulation to the nerve or by direct compression of the nerve. But I found sleeping pills really works!

3. Pain on the leg with motion or weight bearing. I feel it will take long before I can actually walk with crutches!!

4. Fullness of the stomach. As I cannot move to the toilet yet, I have refrained myself from defecating for 5 days now. If I cannot make it to the toilet by tomorrow I will probably not be able to tolerate anymore. I will defecate on bed....sad.......
Diary 14
March 15

Yesterday, I moved to the apartment. The Drs decided that it was OK to get out of the hospital after they had evaluated the X-ray taken in the morning.
They explained to me the quality of the apartment, location, satellite TV, free internet access and so on. Since they have told me so many good things I was willing to get into the room of their recommendation.
So I packed all my stuff and went to see the apartment. It is located along the bigest street in the town and very close to the center Kiev where I first stayed upon arriving to this country.
Anyway, I entered from the back of the building which in my impression was not so clean. There was a guard in the entrance and we went up the elevator.
Drs opened the door and wow! What a nice room!! It was much better than the hotel.
The room was clean and modern. Big bed! So nice. I decided right away to take the room.
Diary 15
March 18

Now I finally got the access to the internet. We had some difficulty in connecting the internet since I moved to the apartment.
Since I moved to the apartment, the quality of the life has improved drastically.I am able to get on the wheelchair by myself and move around, the satelite TV enabled me to see many many English program (I was so tired of watching BCC all day long in the hospital!), taking bath is so nice!
As for the leg currently I am lengthening the first leg by 1.5 mm a day and 1.0 mm a day for the second leg. The stiches were taken out for the second leg yesterday. The abnormal sensation on the first leg has decreased considerably and so it is not my concern anymore.
My current concerns are
ristriction of knee motion (I cannot extend or bend my knees fully),
pain by bearing weight on the legs. I guess these two are ones that I had expected before I came here.