the leg to grow while keeping the surrounding tissue intact. The body can form new bone between gaps in response to the mechanical force of the Ilizarov frame.
The Ilizarov bone growth device is what they call an external fixator. A Siberian doctor named Ilizarov invented it.
Dr. Ilizarov experimented on sheep to develop a way to grow missing bones or lengthen congenitally short bones. For missing bone cases like mine, the application involves breaking a limb with a clean break. Wires about the size of piano wire are placed through the skin and bone, and they exit out the other side.
The femur Ilizarov device is anchored in the hip by rods about the size of pencils. The doctors drilled holes for four large rods from my groin to the side of my left hip. After they did that, I had at least thirty holes in my left leg. Many of them went completely through my leg and out the other side. The larger ones just went into the flesh, and rods were embedded in the pelvis. After about six months passed, I could actually see down inside my leg as the pinholes stretched out.
Every day someone would come in and turn the screws on the Ilizarov device to stretch the bones. Most of the time the nursing staff took on this task. After I came home, Eva did it. For nearly a year, my left femur bone would regrow and replace the missing piece. It’s an ingenious device, although terribly painful, requiring an arduous, lengthy recovery. I called it “hideously wonderful. ”
Six rods also went through the top of my left arm and came out the other side. Big stainless steel bars were placed above and below the arm to stabilize it, because both forearm bones were missing. The rods were the size of a pencil and allowed Dr. Greider to harvest bones from my right pelvis and place them in my left forearm. The doctor explained that this was like taking core samples when drilling an oil well. They also harvested about thirty-two square inches of skin from my right leg to place over the enormous wound in my left arm. Then they embedded a Teflon strip between the newly constructed bones in my forearm in order to prevent the new bones from adhering to each other—that is, attaching themselves and growing together.
Unfortunately for me, that part of the technique didn’t work—the bones healed, but they attached themselves to each other. Consequently, I have no pronation or supination in my left arm—my arm does not straighten out at the elbow, and I can’t turn palms up or palms down. When I extend my arm, my hand is always in a hand-shaking position. My hand cannot twist either right or left. I know all this seems barbaric, and at the time it felt like it. But like the Ilizarov, it works.
Yes, the Ilizarov device worked—and it was also the most painful process I endured as part of my recovery.
The stainless steel Ilizarov on my leg weighed about thirty pounds, and the external fixator on my arm probably weighed another twenty. Whether I was in my wheelchair (about eight months), on my rolling walker (three more months), or eventually my crutches (four more months), I carried that extra weight around for nearly a year.
Can you imagine the strange stares I received everywhere I went? People gasped and gawked at a man in a wheelchair with steel rods sticking out all over his body.
Virtually every time I made my routine visit to Dr. Greider’s office in my wheelchair, the reaction of the other patients was universal. Though each wore casts or braces or walked on crutches, all of them would stare at me and my rods and halos. Then without fail, someone would say somewhat sardonically, “Wow, and I thought I was bad off.” Occasionally, someone would even add, “After seeing you, I feel better.” For a long time, I became the standard by which painful injury was judged.
I’ve often kidded others that because of all this “metalwork,” if archaeologists discover my body years from now, they’ll think they’ve found a new species! My anatomy
The Ilizarov bone growth device is what they call an external fixator. A Siberian doctor named Ilizarov invented it.
Dr. Ilizarov experimented on sheep to develop a way to grow missing bones or lengthen congenitally short bones. For missing bone cases like mine, the application involves breaking a limb with a clean break. Wires about the size of piano wire are placed through the skin and bone, and they exit out the other side.
The femur Ilizarov device is anchored in the hip by rods about the size of pencils. The doctors drilled holes for four large rods from my groin to the side of my left hip. After they did that, I had at least thirty holes in my left leg. Many of them went completely through my leg and out the other side. The larger ones just went into the flesh, and rods were embedded in the pelvis. After about six months passed, I could actually see down inside my leg as the pinholes stretched out.
Every day someone would come in and turn the screws on the Ilizarov device to stretch the bones. Most of the time the nursing staff took on this task. After I came home, Eva did it. For nearly a year, my left femur bone would regrow and replace the missing piece. It’s an ingenious device, although terribly painful, requiring an arduous, lengthy recovery. I called it “hideously wonderful. ”
Six rods also went through the top of my left arm and came out the other side. Big stainless steel bars were placed above and below the arm to stabilize it, because both forearm bones were missing. The rods were the size of a pencil and allowed Dr. Greider to harvest bones from my right pelvis and place them in my left forearm. The doctor explained that this was like taking core samples when drilling an oil well. They also harvested about thirty-two square inches of skin from my right leg to place over the enormous wound in my left arm. Then they embedded a Teflon strip between the newly constructed bones in my forearm in order to prevent the new bones from adhering to each other—that is, attaching themselves and growing together.
Unfortunately for me, that part of the technique didn’t work—the bones healed, but they attached themselves to each other. Consequently, I have no pronation or supination in my left arm—my arm does not straighten out at the elbow, and I can’t turn palms up or palms down. When I extend my arm, my hand is always in a hand-shaking position. My hand cannot twist either right or left. I know all this seems barbaric, and at the time it felt like it. But like the Ilizarov, it works.
Yes, the Ilizarov device worked—and it was also the most painful process I endured as part of my recovery.
The stainless steel Ilizarov on my leg weighed about thirty pounds, and the external fixator on my arm probably weighed another twenty. Whether I was in my wheelchair (about eight months), on my rolling walker (three more months), or eventually my crutches (four more months), I carried that extra weight around for nearly a year.
Can you imagine the strange stares I received everywhere I went? People gasped and gawked at a man in a wheelchair with steel rods sticking out all over his body.
Virtually every time I made my routine visit to Dr. Greider’s office in my wheelchair, the reaction of the other patients was universal. Though each wore casts or braces or walked on crutches, all of them would stare at me and my rods and halos. Then without fail, someone would say somewhat sardonically, “Wow, and I thought I was bad off.” Occasionally, someone would even add, “After seeing you, I feel better.” For a long time, I became the standard by which painful injury was judged.
I’ve often kidded others that because of all this “metalwork,” if archaeologists discover my body years from now, they’ll think they’ve found a new species! My anatomy
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