Having Ilizarov surgery at Korea University Guro Hospital had a story behind it. I was shorter than others, so I had been consistently getting checked about my height at Seoul National University Hospital, and I heard that there were growth hormone injections at the time. The professor in charge at Seoul National University Hospital told me that it would cost a lot of money and have severe side effects, but I was willing to get the injections even if the side effects were severe. However, due to my family's financial situation, I couldn't afford the hormone injections, so I couldn't get them and went to a famous oriental medicine clinic that was known for prescribing well for growth, got examined, and prescribed herbal medicine. I took the herbal medicine for a year, and suddenly I gained weight, started eating meat that I didn't eat before, and only grew a little, so I stopped taking the herbal medicine. My height before the surgery in the second year of middle school was 153.4cm. I received a lot of teasing from my friends since elementary school, which caused me a lot of stress, and on top of that, I was even more stressed when Seoul National University Hospital told me to live in Vietnam if I was short.
So, as a final choice, I became interested in Ilizarov surgery, which I learned about through an internet search around July 2009. I heard that New Born Orthopedics was also performing Ilizarov surgery, so I paid for an examination and received a detailed consultation. As a result of the consultation, they said that there were external fixation devices and accelerated surgery (ISKD), but they could only increase my height by 5~7cm, not up to 10cm. After discussing it with my father again, he advised me that it would be better to have surgery at a general hospital than a private clinic because I could receive comprehensive treatment if I got an infection. So, after looking into general hospitals, I found out that Korea University Guro Hospital was the best.
Coincidentally, I went to Korea University Guro Hospital once a year for regular check-ups because of scoliosis. Every time I went, Professor Seo Seung-woo was reluctant to talk about increasing my height, but when I asked him to recommend Professor Song Hae-ryong, he immediately called Nurse Jeon Bo-min, who was in charge of Professor Song Hae-ryong. While consulting with Nurse Jeon Bo-min, I listened to explanations about what I was curious about regarding Ilizarov surgery, and after discussing it with my father, I made a decision, made a reservation, immediately set a surgery date, and underwent final tests such as X-rays, blood tests, and electrocardiograms before undergoing surgery.
As scheduled, I underwent Ilizarov surgery on March 29, 2010. I was discharged two weeks later on April 13, 2010, and continued to visit the outpatient clinic until the tiptoe surgery. However, when the bone did not grow well, I stopped lengthening the bone for about a month or two, but after that, I grew 10cm. Tiptoeing started to occur gradually from 5cm, and when it reached 7cm~10cm, I could not walk and eventually had to rely on a wheelchair. I worked hard on tiptoe exercises up to 5cm, but it was useless, so I didn't exercise at all. Eventually, I was re-hospitalized in early October for tiptoe surgery, and during the tiptoe surgery, I also had internal fixation surgery. After the tiptoe surgery, I was hospitalized for about a month, and while I was hospitalized, I raised the pins for the tiptoe surgery to 90 degrees. I almost reached 90 degrees and took them out, but I could stand on my left leg, but I couldn't stand on my right leg, so I had to re-pin only my right leg and was discharged.
After being discharged, I continued to visit the outpatient clinic, and around early December, I removed the right pin. After removing the right pin (Ilizarov), I have been wearing a brace from about two weeks after wearing a cast until now (January 27, 2011~). However, now the professor said that I only need to wear a brace when going far away, and I don't need to wear a brace when going nearby. A month later, around February 10, 2011, I removed the left pin (Ilizarov) as well.
However, around May 11, 2011, an infection occurred, and I took pain medication and antibiotics, but the pain worsened and I couldn't even walk, so I went to the hospital. The attending physician said that he would first do a blood test and then discuss it with the professor above to make a decision because the inflammation level was high. However, I was in severe pain and sweating, but the meeting time was getting longer and longer, and they didn't know when they would give me an answer. So, I pleaded to at least get a pain shot and wait, and I finally got a pain shot and waited for the attending physician. And after waiting for 2 hours, the attending physician and 3~5 year resident came in the evening (PM5:00~6:00). The 3~5 year resident asked me if I could be hospitalized after visually checking the X-ray results, inflammation level results, and the condition of my infected left leg. I said that I would be hospitalized if the professor told me to, and he said that he had called the professor and the professor had decided to hospitalize me.
And he said that he would make a final surgical decision after collecting pus and performing a definite inflammation reaction test. He showed me an X-ray picture of a person who recently had the pin reattached due to inflammation and said that I would have the same thing done, and he told me to go through the hospitalization procedure first and then go up to the nurse's station after the procedure was completed. This is because they are doing a test to find out what kind of virus it is by collecting blood (pus) and doing an accurate inflammation reaction test, so he explained in detail why he told me to go to the nurse's station. Anyway, after the hospitalization procedure was completed, I immediately went up to the nurse's station, and the attending physician, 3~5 year resident, and 1st year resident Jung Young-jin collected blood (pus), and they disinfected me every day from the next day until the day before the surgery (May 14, 2011~May 16, 2011).
I received the surgical consent form on Monday (May 16, 2011), but I told the attending physician Jung Young-jin that I wanted to postpone the surgery because I had some difficulty breathing 3 days after the surgery last year (March 29, 2010) and wanted to have a breathing-related test. Dr. Jung Young-jin asked me about the difficulty breathing after the surgery last year, and I postponed the surgery and had a breathing test, and they asked my dad and me what to do. So, I applied for a pain pump while writing the surgical consent form, and after the surgery, I came out with a pain pump, but on the second day, phlegm mixed with blood came out, and on the third day, it got worse and it was difficult to breathe. At that time, I had a test to see if there were any side effects from the antibiotics, and there were no side effects from the antibiotics, but I confirmed that there were side effects from the pain pump and told them that I had removed it immediately. He said he would consult with the anesthesiologist one more time. After 1-2 hours, he came back and said that they had finally decided to do the surgery, and I just said thank you. I could finally sleep comfortably, and the morning of the surgery came.
The professor also told me the same thing as the attending physician, that he would remove the inflammation today, remove the pin inside, and reattach it by turning it out. Before entering the operating room, the nurse asked me in the surgery waiting room if I was wearing underwear, if I had gotten a shot, etc., and I answered kindly, and after 30 minutes, I entered the operating room. It was evening when I came out of the operating room and was in the recovery room, and when I woke up, my leg hurt and I was cold, so I asked the nurse and she said that she had put a thin pin in my leg and that she was warming me with an air injector, so don't worry. And as time passed, my leg hurt more and more, so I said, "Can't I get a pain shot?" and she said she would ask the attending physician, and about 10 minutes later, after getting a pain shot, it was fortunately a little less painful. I had an inflammation test from the time I was hospitalized until the time I was discharged, and the inflammation level was 6.0 when I was discharged, so they told me to come back in two weeks.
On May 13, 2011, my father and mother filed for divorce when I was in pain due to inflammation. For about two days before being hospitalized, I had been living in my stepmother's house, but I gradually couldn't walk and had to be hospitalized. So, when I was discharged (June 8, 2011), I had no choice but to live in my stepmother's house, and my stepmother asked me to write a written oath, so I wrote a written oath.
Perhaps because of this stress, the inflammation level rose back to 18, and the professor told me to get rid of the inflammation quickly. So, I scraped the pin area before getting a shot, and it was very painful and stinging, but this was nothing. This is because I had to endure the pain to completely remove the inflammation.
I was so upset that the inflammation level had gone up, so I had to write a memoir that I was asked to write anyway, so I was writing it on the computer, and while I went to the bathroom for a while, my stepmother looked at my computer and got angry, saying that I was writing about her (stepmother). I said it wasn't true, but I had no choice but to be kicked out of the house and live in the factory.
In the factory, I couldn't wash properly, disinfect properly, and only ate ramen, so I ended up getting a stomach ache on the day I went to the hospital. My father said to postpone going to the hospital because of work, so I postponed it, and when I went to the hospital on July 7, 2011, the inflammation level test showed that the level had risen to 80. And the X-ray showed that the bone was not growing well, so they said to do a bone graft. So, I was hospitalized on July 21, 2011, and before going into surgery, I had mental treatment, and on August 8, 2011, I had surgery to remove the thin pin and put on a cast.
Two weeks later, on August 22, 2011, I took off the cast and had surgery with the Ilizarov ring that I had had surgery with in the first place. After that, I checked the inflammation level while I was hospitalized, but it kept going back and forth, or it went up and down repeatedly, so I kept postponing the bone graft surgery. The first time it fell to the normal range, I set the surgery date a week after Chuseok, but the professor confidently said that he would put in artificial bone before going into surgery, but after reviewing it sufficiently, he told me through the attending physician that he had finally decided not to do the bone graft surgery.
Now I don't even get antibiotic injections, so I was discharged on September 17, 2011, but I didn't go to my stepmother's house, and my father found a house and I went there. Originally, I was supposed to go to the hospital on October 6, 2011, but my father was busy, so I made an appointment for October 20, 2011, and when I went, I looked at the X-ray and said that it was a good thing I didn't have the surgery and that a lot of bone had grown. But he said it was still too early to take it out and that it would be better to take it out in a month or two. The next outpatient visit is November 17th, but to register as a disabled person due to scoliosis, I went to the hospital a week earlier on November 10, 2011, and the professor said that it had gotten much better than last month, but he said that he would take it out in a month if only the bone filled in the two holes.
When the inflammation first started, I had family problems this year, and moneylenders called me and even came to my house and rang the doorbell because of my father's debt. Eventually, a loan bank forcibly opened the door and came in and even put on a red tag. To make matters worse, our house was in my mother's name, and it was about to be auctioned off.
I speculated that the inflammation occurred due to these various stresses. Also, the surrounding environment (effects of smoking, stress), etc., may have also had an impact. Inflammation usually occurs when you don't disinfect well, but in my case, stress and smoking are the main factors.
